I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.
I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I’ve never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I’ve wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn’t work.
I’ve always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn’t have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.
If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.
If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you’re going to the bank to borrow money.
We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.
In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions – one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.
I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.
Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public’s going to like, anyway.
I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.
When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.
I’ve been a loner all the time throughout my life… I haven’t been the best father… Many times… my children have accused me of not giving them enough attention. And, frankly, I never have been good at handling that.
I have a nice car, a Mercedes. And then I have an old El Camino truck that I’m crazy about. I like to get in that truck and go up in the hills near where I live, in Vegas, and take my camera. That, to me, is Heaven, being out in nature, taking pictures of the wildlife.
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!
I tried to connect my singing voice to my guitar an’ my guitar to my singing voice. Like the two was talking to one another.
Touring a segregated America – forever being stopped and harassed by white cops hurt you most ‘cos you don’t realise the damage. You hold it in. You feel empty, like someone reached in and pulled out your guts. You feel hurt and dirty, less than a person.
I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.
I was born on a plantation, and things weren’t so good. We didn’t have any money. I never thought of the word ‘poor’ ’til I got to be a man, but when you live in a house that you can always peek out of and see what kind of day it is, you’re not doing so well. And your rest room is not inside the house.
When I do eventually drop, I pray to God that it’ll happen in one of three ways. Firstly, on stage or leaving the stage, then secondly in my sleep. And the third way? You’ll have to figure that out for yourself!
When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’
When you don’t have much money, you worry that they’ll just put you in the ground someplace and your loved ones won’t know where you are.
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!
The problem is that a lot of the blues stations are late on Saturday night, and like a lot of people, I ain’t no vampire!
I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.
I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.
Once in a while, the thumb that fits over the neck of the guitar kinda bothers me a little bit, but not that much yet. I figure in time I won’t do much because of my age.
As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.
I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.
Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’, too.
I never met a woman I didn’t like. I love ’em all, in their different ways.
Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I’m trying to do more. When I’m singing, I don’t want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.
I guess you can look at me, and tell I’m the old man. My name is BB King.
Water from the white fountain didn’t taste any better than from the black fountain.
I have not been a good father, but no father has loved his children more. Like my father, I decided the best thing I could do for my kids was work and provide. Fortunately, I’ve been able to do that. Unfortunately, my work was on the road, and that’s meant a life of one-nighters.
My dad died, I think, at 87. So I’ll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I’m not trying to lose weight.
‘She’s Dynamite’ was a 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot. That was the beginning of rock n’ roll, and I guess they thought it would be a BB King version of rock n’ roll.
I tell my children now that they are older, ‘If something happens to me… don’t make no big fuss over me. Don’t make no big expense on my funeral. Don’t put any pressure on the rest of the family. I’ve loved everybody, and I hope they loved me. But don’t create this big expense for the family.’
I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.
Growing up on the plantation there in Mississippi, I would work Monday through Saturday noon. I’d go to town on Saturday afternoons, sit on the street corner, and I’d sing and play.
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