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
We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.
Interpretation
Embrace your influences but remain true to yourself.
This quote by B. B. King emphasizes the importance of having role models and influences in our lives while also reminding us that authenticity is essential. It signifies that while we can be inspired by others, our unique identity should always shine through in our actions and expressions.
In practice
In a speech about following your passion in music and staying true to your sound.
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.
One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
Relax, ease back in your seats and let the music take you wherever it does.
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
In hindsight, I think my manager and I both knew that 'Someone You Loved' was a special song that we had to put out. But no one was expecting it to do so well.
Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.
Every time a new record started, people exhaled with pleasure, or their bodies moved automatically. I really started getting high off of the euphoric exclamations. Every record I put on was like a baptism.
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