B. B. King quotes
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“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "The Charlotte Observer", p. 2D, October 5, 1997.
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“I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "Blues All Around Me". Book by B. B. King, David Ritz, www.indiewire.com. 1996.
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“There's a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There's also happiness to it if you want to hear it.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
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“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“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!”
-- B. B. King -
“It's going to be years and years before most people realize how greatly he contributed to American music.”
-- B. B. King -
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“I don't think it's meant for man to know everything at once.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "B.B. King: What I've Learned". Interview with Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. 2005.
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“Albert King wasn't my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues”
-- B. B. King -
“I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good - he's rock's #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us”
-- B. B. King -
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“I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.”
-- B. B. King -
“Education is the one thing that no one can take from you.”
-- B. B. King -
“If you can't get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.”
-- B. B. King -
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“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“I don't think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
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“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“Nobody loves me but my mother, And she could be jivin' too.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "Nobody Loves Me But My Mother" (song) (1970)
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“We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.”
-- B. B. King -
“You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.”
-- B. B. King -
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“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“You never miss what you've never had. I never had any other life. I didn't know any other life.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement". The Academy of Achievement interview, www.achievement.org. June 10, 2004.
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“When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.”
-- B. B. King -
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“I don't try to just be a blues singer - I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“I've known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that's as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I've known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began - out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don't necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
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“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“The crowds treat me like my last name. When I go onstage people usually stand up, I never ask them to, but they do. They stand up and they don't know how much I appreciate it.”
-- B. B. King -
“And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.”
-- B. B. King -
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“The blues was bleeding the same blood as me.”
-- B. B. King -
“I'm no good with chords. I'm horrible with chords.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
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“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.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "Michael Jai White on martial arts, heavy makeup, and starting out with Troma". Interview with Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, film.avclub.com. May 13, 2015.
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“I was glad to see other blues guitarists like Albert King have crossover successes like me. We played in the same places like the Whisky and the Filmore. When Albert made his guitar cry, he could cut you so deep!”
-- B. B. King -
“The Blues? It's the mother of American music. That's what is is - the source.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
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“I do it because I still get a kick out of it. I still love performing. It keeps me young.”
-- B. B. King -
“Charlie Christian had no more impact on my playing than Django Reinhardt or Lonnie Johnson. I just wanted to play like him. I wanted to play like all of them. All of these people were important to me. I couldn't play like any of them, though ...”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“I did several shows with Jimi Hendrix, that's when I got to know him better, I knew of him, I met him [when he was playing] with Little Richard... And he was kind of quiet, shy, he didn't open up too much, but there were questions as we all ask each other. You know, "how do you do this" and "why do you do that..." We had very small discussions on things like that. And he was very polite, I thought [he was] a very nice guy...”
-- B. B. King -
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“Janis Joplin sings the blues as hard as any black person.”
-- B. B. King -
“I can't think of anyone I've mistreated. I've always thought that I am my brother's keeper. And I believe there's a 'great spirit' that takes care of all of us.”
-- B. B. King -
“I've put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.”
-- B. B. King -
“Kenny Burrell is overall the greatest guitarist in the world and he's my favorite.”
-- B. B. King -
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“I call myself a blues singer, but you ain't never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.”
-- B. B. King -
“A lot of people believe what other people say.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“I've been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer”
-- B. B. King -
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“I don't have a favorite song that I've written. But I do have a favorite song: 'Always on My Mind,' the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells.”
-- B. B. King -
“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”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me.”
-- B. B. King -
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“There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven't yet done”
-- B. B. King -
“The blues are three L's - living , loving and hopefully, laughing.”
-- B. B. King -
“He was Jimi Hendrix! He didn't sound like anybody else but himself. He was like Charlie Parker in his way of playing, he played well, he was a person that made waves. When you heard Jimi Hendrix you knew it was Jimi Hendrix, he introduced himself in his instrument... You know, many radio stations play records and a lot of the times they don't call out the names who you just listened to, but when they play Jimi Hendrix, you don't have to tell me, [you know] it's Jimi Hendrix...”
-- B. B. King -
“I don’t like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch.”
-- B. B. King -
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“I guess you can look at me, and tell I'm the old man. My name is BB King.”
-- B. B. King -
“I don't like anybody to be angry with me. I'd rather have friends.”
-- B. B. King -
“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“I gave you seven children, but now you want to give them back.”
-- B. B. King -
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“I can't afford no liquor, all I can buy is beer and wine.”
-- B. B. King -
“May I live forever. But may you live forever and a day.”
-- B. B. King -
“Water from the white fountain didn't taste any better than from the black fountain.”
-- B. B. KingSource : "B.B. King: What I've Learned". Interview with Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. 2005.
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“Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!”
-- B. B. KingSource : 1965 In Sports Illustrated,'Scorecard',19 Jul.
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“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.”
-- B. B. King -
“A day that I don't learn something new is a wasted day.”
-- B. B. King
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