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
I'm more careful about my hands than about what I eat and most anything else, because my hands have been my living. My hands have been able to help me learn. My hands have taken me around the world. So I'm very proud of my hands.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the deep appreciation and significance of hands in the speaker's life as a musician.
B. B. King's quote reflects the importance of his hands not just as tools for playing music, but as a vital part of his identity and experiences. He highlights that his hands have enabled him to learn, travel, and achieve his passions, emphasizing pride in the physical capabilities that have shaped his life and career in music.
In practice
During a speech at a music workshop, one could use the quote to emphasize the importance of practicing and valuing one's craft.
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.
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.
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.
A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me.
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.
People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.
I don't think there will ever be a time I don't write, and I hope there will never be a time I don't act.
The science of design, or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is the source and very essence of painting, sculpture, architecture... Sometimes... it seems to me that... all the works of the human brain and hand are either design itself or a branch of that art.
But in many orders of beauty, particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and reflection. There are just grounds to conclude, that moral beauty partakes of this latter species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind.
I hope there is something worthy in my writings and not merely the novelty of a black face associated with the power to rhyme that has attracted attention.
An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.
The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.
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