B. B. King Quotes
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You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.
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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.
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A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me.
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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.
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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
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God made Blues right after he made woman.
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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.
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Water from the white fountain didn't taste any better than from the black fountain.
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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.
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I guess you can look at me, and tell I'm the old man. My name is BB King.
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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.
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You never miss what you've never had. I never had any other life. I didn't know any other life.
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Janis Joplin sings the blues as hard as any black person.
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I don't think it's meant for man to know everything at once.
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Education is the one thing that no one can take from you.
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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.
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It's going to be years and years before most people realize how greatly he contributed to American music.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If you can't get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.
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There was a lot of other young players around at that time when I was coming, but there was older people like Blind Lemon, which was one of my favorites. I don't know, just seemed like everybody I heard could play better than me.
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A lot of times I say to myself, "I wished I could be worthy of all the compliments that people give me sometimes." I'm not inventing anything that's going to stop cancer or muscular dystrophy or anything, but I like to feel that my time and talent is always there for the people that need it. When someone do say something negative, most times I think about it, but it don't bother me that much.
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Notes are expensive... spend them wisely
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