B. B. King Quotes

I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.

And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

I've always liked ladies all my life. I guess it started with my mom. So every time I saw a pretty lady, I thought, she's pretty.

We are here because there are things that need our help. Like the planet. Like each other. Like animals. The world is like a garden, and we are its protectors.

If it wasn't for the British musicians, a lot of us black musicians in America would still be catchin' the hell that we caught long before. So thanks to them, thanks to all you guys. You opened doors that I don't think would have been opened in my lifetime. When white America started paying attention to the blues - it started opening a lot of doors that had been closed to us.

Sometimes the proprietors of the little juke joints gave me a couple dollars. I loved that. I'd go back next Saturday.

I do it because I still get a kick out of it. I still love performing. It keeps me young.

Playing guitar is like telling the truth.

Singing about your sadness unburdens your soul. But the blues hollers shouted about more than being sad. They were also delivering messages in musical code. If the master was coming, you might sing a hidden warning to the other field hands . . . The blues could warn you what was coming. I could see the blues was about survival.

A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me.

I don't do much recording anymore, but before I really stopped, I was glad to get five, five cent a record. That's why when I see people today and they complain about what they get, and I picked cotton for $2.50 a day.

The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I'll keep playing until I feel like I can't.

My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess - she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived I probably wouldn't be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.

I don’t like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me.

I'm no good with chords. I'm horrible with chords.

I'm self-taught. But I finally learned that they was having little shows or night dances or whatever you call them at little juke joints not far from where I lived, and I used to go there. They wouldn't let me play inside, but I could sit outside on the weekends, when it wasn't raining or something.

Albert King wasn't my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues

Many people leave the country to see beautiful places. I just look out the window and see some of the most gorgeous scenery ever, right here in the USA.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don't worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made 'Three O' Clock Blues,' they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I'm trying to satisfy.

Growing up, I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in, you gotta stand in the doorway.

I don't try to just be a blues singer - I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.

Elvis, he was unique. And he loved the blues, it was a pity he didn't do more.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales. I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton ... oh, there's many more! I wouldn't want to be like them, you understand, but I'd like to be equal, if you will.

When you heard Jimi Hendrix, you knew it was Jimi Hendrix. He introduced himself with his instrument. His attack to a guitar man, was, oh, something else! You think of one of the great American ball players, or one of the great fighters of the world, you know, that's the way he would attack any note on his guitar.

I never use that word, retire.

You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.

When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

Playing the guitar is like telling the truth - you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don't have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don't have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It's you.

My ex-wife was trying to be nice once, so she took me to a concert in Los Angeles. I went with her to Symphony Hall, and the orchestra was playing. When the show started, the spotlight was sharp on this one man (Andres Segovia) and he had sombrero on and his guitar propped up like this and, oh man ... he was a master ! - I really heard it. That one guitar sounded like a whole orchestra to me.

I don't think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go on the stage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience.

Hard times don't necessarily mean being poor all the time. I've known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family likes everybody else but them. That hurts and that's as deep a hurt as you can possibly get.

I think Ive done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I havent yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe Id reached that peak. But Im 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, Ill be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.

I always liked the steel guitar. I also love the guys that play the bottleneck. But I could never do it; I never made it do what I want. So every time I would pick up the guitar, I'd shake my hand and trill it a bit. For some strange reason my ears would say to me that sounds similar to what those guys were doing. I can't pick up the guitar now without doing it. So that's how I got into making my sound. It was nothing pretty. Just trying to please myself. I heard that sound.

Religion began as a natural explanation of the universe. The problem started when people refused to accept new evidence.

I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother's aunt, who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and a few others.

I've been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra's. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.

Nobody loves me but my mother, And she could be jivin' too.

Michael Bloomfield came in after rock n roll started, and he was a great guitarist. He idolized me - I know that. What else can I say ? he was a young, excitable man. To him, drugs were plentiful, and that was no good. I talked to him like he was a son of mine. He was a great and he was gonna be greater. But he was part of the "in-crowd" and so he never got there

It just seemed to me that the way I played was nice. I could hear it myself.

I don't think it's meant for man to know everything at once.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!

When I do eventually drop, I pray to God that it will 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!