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. KingRead
A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A guitar provides comfort and companionship, much like a trusted friend.
In this quote, B. B. King expresses the deep emotional connection he has with his guitar, likening it to an old friend. This relationship highlights how music can provide solace, companionship, and a sense of identity, emphasizing the role of musical instruments in an artist's life as a source of support and affection.
Themes
GuitarFriendshipMusicCompanionshipEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech at a music festival to show the importance of musical instruments.
More from B. B. King
All quotes βThe 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. KingRead
Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public's going to like, anyway.
B. B. KingRead
I have not been a good father, but no father has loved his children more. Like my father, I decided the best thing I could do for my kids was work and provide. Fortunately, I've been able to do that. Unfortunately, my work was on the road, and that's meant a life of one-nighters.
B. B. KingRead
People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.
B. B. KingRead
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. KingRead
Similar quotes
I'm from Kenner, Louisiana, where music is played for every occasion in life. There's music for being born, there's music for dying... It's just natural. Families get really good because they play a lot together.
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The blues has been the foundation of all other American music since the beginning.
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Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau.
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When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
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You can never underestimate that moment of somebody explaining your life to you, something you thought was inexplicable, through music. That was the way out of loneliness.
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No matter what type of equipment you have, you still have to have a certain talent to be able to make a good record.
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