Why B. B. King quotes?
Riley B. King was an American blues singer-songwriter, record producer, and guitarist. He pioneered a complex technique for playing a guitar solo that influenced several electric and blues guitarists. Throughout his musical career, King worked relentlessly, performing more than 200 performances each year on average, even when he was 70.
He did 342 performances in 1956 alone. In his sleep, the legendary bluesman B.B. King passed away peacefully on May 14, 2015.
This collection of B. B. King quotes can take you through his life experiences and the legacy that he created. Reading his sayings can also inspire you and help you understand music in a new light.
What parents should know
- King is considered one of the most influential blues artists of all time and one of the Three Kings Of The Blues Guitar.
- His guitar solos were composed of three techniques - staccato picking, shimmered vibrato, added with a fluid-action string bending.
- King was very religious and started singing in gospel choirs. He learned his first three guitar chords from a local minister.
What to discuss with kids
- King was born on a cotton farm in Itta Bena, Mississippi, and subsequently worked at an Indianola cotton gin.
- In church, he was drawn to the guitar and music and began his career in juke joints and on local radio.
- He started his music career by playing in small local establishments and on local radio and went on world tours.
Famous B. B. King Quotes
1. "I don't think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow."
2. "When I go on the stage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience."
3. "When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation."
4. "Nobody loves me but my mother
And she could be jivin', too." - ‘Nobody Love Me But My Mother’
5. "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."
6. “The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. The blues didn't have to explain the mystery of pain that I felt.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
7. “Reading this, some may accuse me of remembering wrong. That's okay because I'm not writing a cold-blooded history.” - 'Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King'.
8. "I don't want to give the impression that I fault my father. I don't. The truth is that he's one of my heroes. He's monumental to me."
9. "People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die."
10. "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!"
11. "To me, singing is like talking. If it ain't natural, it ain't right."
12. “Now it's time to stop. This book is a place for me to pause and look back at who I was and what I became.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
13. “For all the hard times and tough challenges, I faced during different periods of my life, I think I was lucky or blessed or both.”
14. "I started to like blues, I guess when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There was something about it because nobody else played that kind of music."
15. "I was born on a plantation, and things weren't so good. We didn't have any money."
16. "I don't like anybody to be angry with me. I'd rather have friends."
Inspirational B. B. King Quotes
17. "You only live but once
And when you're dead you're done
So let the good times roll." - 'Let the Good Times Roll'
18. “But if hurt can change to kindness - that's something Mama showed me - the world becomes a little less cruel.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
19. "Blues are a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore."
20. "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!"
21. “I learned another thing from the hurt my cousin gave me - never to give that kind of hurt to anyone else.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
22. “My friendliness might fool you. Come into my dressing room and I'll shake your hand, pose for a picture, make polite small talk.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
23. "We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so."
24. “This is a blues story. The blues are simple music, and I'm a simple man.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
B.B. King Quotes On Education
25. “A day that I don't learn something new is a wasted day.”
26. “Religion began as a natural explanation of the universe. The problem started when people refused to accept new evidence.”
27. “Education is the one thing that no one can take from you.”
28. “I don't think it's meant for man to know everything at once.” - ‘B.B. King: What I’ve Learned', Interview with Mike Sager, 2005
29. “It angers me how scholars associate the blues strictly with tragedy.” - 'Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King'.
30. “Water from the white fountain didn't taste any better than from the black fountain”
31. “The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.”
32. “I'm self-taught.”
33. “Words aren't my friends. Music is. Sounds, notes, rhythms. I talk through music.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
34. “I struggle with words. Never could express me the way I wanted. My mind fights my mouth, and thoughts get stuck in my throat.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
35. "Back when we were in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That's what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called black."
36. "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 Quotes About Music
37. "T-Bone Walker has a touch that nobody has been able to duplicate. He seems to scrape his pick across the strings—how he hits specific strings, I just don’t know!"
38. “Both sounds - guitar and voice - were coming out of me, but they issued from different parts of my soul.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
39. "’She's Dynamite' was 100 years ago, and I recorded that song because the company thought that it was a great song and it was hot."
40. "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."
41. "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."
42. “As a little kid, blues meant hope, excitement, pure emotion. Blues were about feelings.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
43. "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."
44. “The blues didn't have to explain the mystery of pain that I felt; it was there in the songs and voices of singers like Lonnie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, in the cries of their guitars.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
45. “I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions. By fooling with the feedback between my amplifier and instrument, I started experimenting with sounds that expressed my feelings, whether happy or sad, bouncy or bluesy.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
46. "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."
47. "... But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all."
48. “Music is good for everybody. They say it soothes the savage beast.”
49. "There were a lot of other young players around at that time when I was coming, but there were older people like Blind Lemon, which was one of my favorites."
50. “I'm a fan first. I believed Duke Ellington when he said there's no bad music, just some of it is presented badly.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
51. "Kenny Burrell is overall the greatest guitarist in the world and he's, my favorite."
52. “Blues music is like any other kind of music. Some of us excel, and some of us don't. Some of us are really able to please people, and some of us can't. But we all have the blues - red, white, black, brown, yellow, rich or poor.” - ‘The B.B. King Reader: 6 Decades of Commentary’
53. “The great jazz instrumentalists taught me how to sing and interpret a song.” - ‘Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King’
54. "Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues as 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."
55. “The Blues? It's the mother of American music. That's what it is - the source.”
Editorial credit: Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com
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