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" Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore. "
B. B. King
Whatever
Play
Blues
Related Quotes:
" I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions. "
B. B. King
Connect
Emotions
Guitar
" 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
Child
Problem
People
" The blues was bleeding the same blood as me. "
B. B. King
Blood
Blues
Bleeding
" 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
School
Learning
Jazz
" Back when we was 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. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep... Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such. "
B. B. King
Christmas
School
Black
" You've heard me call myself a bluesman and a blues singer. I call myself a blues singer, but you ain't never heard me call myself a blues guitar man. Well, that's because there's been so many can do it better'n I can, play the blues better'n me. I think a lot of them have told me things, taught me things. "
B. B. King
You
Think
Myself
" Cotton was a force of nature. There's a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton. "
B. B. King
Force
Growing
Nature
" I'm trying to get people to see that we are our brother's keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues. "
B. B. King
Red
People
Brother
" I have a nice car, a Mercedes. And then I have an old El Camino truck that I'm crazy about. I like to get in that truck and go up in the hills near where I live, in Vegas, and take my camera. That, to me, is Heaven, being out in nature, taking pictures of the wildlife. "
B. B. King
Truck
Me
Nature
" The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you. "
B. B. King
Nobody
Learning
Beautiful
" Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I'm trying to do more. When I'm singing, I don't want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling. "
B. B. King
Good
Singing
Think
" Even now, at 82 years old, if I don't learn something every day, you know what I think? It's a day lost. Now, I don't practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I'm doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear. "
B. B. King
Music
Myself
Practice
" If my fans want to do something for me when that time comes, I say, don't waste your money on me. Help the homeless. Help the needy... people who don't have no food... Instead of some big funeral, where they come from here and there and all over. Save it. "
B. B. King
Food
Time
People
" When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called. "
B. B. King
War
Age
Start
" When people treat you mean, you dislike them for that, but not because of their person, who they are. I was born and raised in a segregated society, but when I left there, I had nobody I disliked other than the people that'd mistreated me, and that only lasted for as long as they were mistreating me. "
B. B. King
People
Me
Society
" 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
Singing
Two
Talking
" I would sit on the street corners in my hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, and I would play. And, generally, I would start playing gospel songs. People would come by on the street - you live in Time Square, you know how they do it - they would bunch up. And they would always compliment me on gospel tunes, but they would tip me when I played blues. "
B. B. King
Start
Time
People
" We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so. "
B. B. King
You
Doing
Care
" Whenever I'm in Kansas City, I think back to all the jazz-blues greats who played the blues here - like Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Jay McShann. I watched those guys jam in different places and heard a lot of things - but I couldn't do what they did. They were too good. "
B. B. King
Blues
Good
Places
" People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die. "
B. B. King
World
Problems
Long
" 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' 'til 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 rest room is not inside the house. "
B. B. King
Thought
Good
Man
" Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there! "
B. B. King
Everybody
Wants
Heaven
" Water from the white fountain didn't taste any better than from the black fountain. "
B. B. King
Fountain
Black
Better
" 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
Growing Up
Wolf
Stand