I'd rather be B.B. King. That's the way I started. Let the heavy metal guys play heavy metal, let the others play the other ... I try to do what I do better, not get away from it.

Water from the white fountain didn't taste any better than from the black fountain.

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.

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.

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' till 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 restroom is not inside the house.

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.

Kenny Burrell is overall the greatest guitarist in the world and he's my favorite.