B.B. King

S = Standifer
BB = BB King

S I would like to ask you a few questions, mainly ...ah ...there's been a lot written about you and ah I wanted to give you an opportunity to put in Historic Prime House your plans and to see what B.B. King has to say about himself, in books or what someone has said about you. ______________Let me ask you this, if this doesn't come out because of the back ground sounds in the next 2 months will you let me come to Las Vegas to talk to you for a few minutes if this doesn't come out.
BB The only thing is catching me in Las Vegas is like catching your______________. Well anyway out office is there but I'm on the road most of the time. They seem like they might have quieted down a little bit now so we can go ahead.

S Could you tell... as a musician why do you characterize you yourself as a blues musician?
BB Well that's because I play blues most of the time, only in my room I might experiment with a little jazz or a little rock or something, but on stage playing to the public usually I play blues. Which I am comfortable with.

S Do you consider yourself playing traditional or classically kind of blues.
BB I consider myself playing a kind of blues, but the kind that I play is strictly B.B. King, not traditional not contemporary its just B.B. King.

S Do you read music?
BB Yes...

S Do you think it's important to read music in the latest...
BB Of course, of course I'll tell you to give you a little for instance, I'm not a fast sight reader, I read, ah to give you my little for instance I was in France a few years ago and I met a lady, a very pretty lady, and I didn't speak French, she didn't speak English so I had a friend that spoke French. So I would tell him what to tell the lady and then she would reply and he would tell me. And I went back the next year and she was married. So today parlay vu Franca. Yeah I do understand some words and I speak too, but I'm trying to say the same thing about the music. One should learn to...it took me a long time because I had no formal music education. Everything I've learned I'm self-taught, so I'm still...its very important that one should learn to read. If not sight read fast, at least read, and if you are able to do so, for instance I usually tell the guys I've made records with various people you know as a back ground musician from time to time, so I usually say give me my thought tonight,______________ But all of my guys, all the guys they can, their sight-readers, everybody is a good written musician except me.

S Now you were ______________ probably about my age and...
BB No I wasn' t______________ and I'm sixty-one.

S Well when I was a kid we at that time too we didn't think we needed to read music. We learned to read later on
BB but I think its kind of weird, people usually will say to you as a blues musician, they will say oh man you don't need to read music, then they talk about you if you don't. No they really do and I got angry about that, ah people used to tell me, oh man the blues, you don't have to do that for the blues, and they when I would play a theater, like the Michigan Theater here, oh man its B.B. King man that's blues man you ought to be able to play so you can cut the smoke with a knife. I don't even smoke, so I don't want nobody cutting smoke out, so to me it seemed a downer, they put you down, so I say to me B.B. King maybe you won't have to read but learn anyway.

S That's the strange thing about young people, and you could also qualify for those big jobs where you would have to read and write or get dumped.
BB I know I probably wouldn't even be able to get those. But I think that it's important, I think the one thing that I've thought about a lot since I've had a band, I've been carrying my own band since 56. And before that I worked with various and luckily from the beginning I've always had a hit record and most times I was always featured, I've always been featured I've never worked in the rhythm section, never have and I've wanted to so much. And every time I get in the rhythm section because I usually have a record out, somebody will say play Three O'clock Blues, play Sweet Sixteen or something like this and a fear of me playing the rhythm section, today I'm a horrible, horrible rhythm player, I just cannot play very well.

S But you did your earlier hits you played side man or background man...
BB Yes, now there's been times now but my company M. C. A. they helped found, I mean doing the hits, I Œv made records with Crystal Gayle, one with the three sisters. Barbara Mandrel, I did one or two of her albums, and also I did one with Carlyle Simons, so I did, I did, you know they used me as a feature like a lead guitarist.

S Tell me something about your relationship with T-Bone Walker. Do you have anything to do with T-Bone?
BB no, I had nothing to do with him...that was God walking around with that kid.

S Your______________ that the two people that influenced the kind of blues that you do and that's...
BB T-Bone was one of them...yes______________the same kind of blues. Thank you is the guitar and God on earth with the electric guitar playing abilities. There has never been anybody, as far as B.B. King is concerned that has been able to capture the sound that T-Bone Walker got out of his guitar, not even today. A few people that's close, Wayne Bennett is one but nobody else to me ever has captured that sound that T-Bone Walker had.

S What other sound did you have coming from______________?
BB Well thank you but my idles if we're going to talk about my idles T-Bone Walker was one that, he played the electric guitar that gave me that sound that I wished that I could have played and would have if I could have. But before him, there was Leonard Jefferson, they called him Blind Leonard Jefferson, a blues singer and a acoustic guitar player and that was Lonnie Johnson, which was my great influence on stage who also was a blues player, ah a blues singer I should say and ah he started with the acoustic guitar which later on he played electric. Then there was Charlie Kristen the great jazz guitarist; I was crazy about him and a Frenchman called Jingle Lionheart a French guitarist, a fantastic jazz guitarist which was associated with ______________. Well naming the people that I just did all these people combined makes B.B. King.

S Well where's B.B. King among all those people?
BB I don't know he must be there somewhere.

S Well I unfortunately ...what would you tell ______________exactly who you are?
BB I would say that I kind of like the head, now put all of that together. That makes me.

S ______________?
BB Put the B.B. King Gospel feeling in that is probably the edge. The Gospel feeling that I came from checks with and I guess you might say that the influence that I had in the Mississippi Delta, where I grew up, all of that combined with shall we say the flavor of various styles of music that I wish I could play. I think one of those things with me was ah I just never could imitate them as I wished, so I think by so doing this made me make a style of my own. I didn't think anything about it until I guess ah the late 50's early 60's people started to writing about it and started talking about it, and then I started listening to it and thinking what the heck am I doing? I'm just playing and being me, you know, and then people were saying hey, listen to B.B. King, and I started hearing guys ah sometimes when they do sessions the producer would say; play some B.B. King, you know and I'll tell you a little secret that most people don't know the reason I played with a lot of treble all the time was because I could never hear lows. So that's how it started, I could never hear like if a guys playing, ugly ears you know where they have the record bass, a guy would come around with a big bull ______________ they call the big bass, and always I had to get pretty close to it, and I used to have them to amplify them.

S Does this hearing problem have a....
BB Oh I'm not that way to pitch but I could never hear a note proper, for instance in the key of C or B flat or what ever you might be in, ah unless he hit say the tonic note hard a little but he hit it way down low you know what ever it might be, C.

S The low octaves is obviously______________ loud to get.
BB Well not to loud.

S Which is your key? ______________in most of your pieces.
BB The one that I play less in is E, that one thing I'm pretty rough on my band in some ways______________ cause that's the way that I studied it myself, and I try to keep my men up the same way because they only allow one singer... me. And if some nights and my voice is in bad shape singing The Thrill is Gone sorry we didn't play it a few minutes ago because they started to tell me about the May shows but I will get it on at this show, but I told them that I think that a guy should be able to transpose or play a step higher or step lower without real difficulties, I can and I think they can.

S Well I'm glad that you could _____ of course I've talked with George Benson _____. Let me ask you just one thing.
BB May I comment for just a minute about George Benson?

S Sure...
BB And the reason I think he's such a great musician and entertainer is because George is all around. He can play enough of anything, you understand, he played enough of anything, anything what ever it is he is...that's why he's religious as far as I'm concerned.

S I just want to say it was always just that you got together, cause he said the same thing about you. And he respects you ______________. I have to ask you this question...ah I spoke to Cohn Recreates last week and I ask them a question now is blues...do you ever feel that way and she said; well hell no if I felt the way I do all my blues I'd be in terrible shape. How about your do you feel like you have experienced all those things______________.
BB No I don't think you have to have really been there I think that ...you know that I think that my job as an entertainer and a musician______________ I wouldn't trade it. Gosh when I'm singing about the guy with the______________ I believe it, so I want the audience to believe it. Yes I have had times, but the problems...I know what your going to ask me and I'll try to explain it the best way that I can, I would think you'd have to come to Mississippi as I did, we lived there ______________, my dad used to say to me well when I do anything I want everybody to know, so he's gone now, he's been gone for two years,______________.

S ______________ I talked to your son ______________ but he tells about where you were from and his grandfather and the new house when it's done.
BB that the middle son, see I've got two of them here with me the middle son is tall dark, oh well we would assume he is...and then the middle son, that's Leonard, there's another one, that's Willie and he's older then he's back there.

S Well I just wanted to tell you you've done a good job.
BB Oh thank you, thanks a lot I'm the guy that always each day I say a prayer I just say I'm lucky to have them but I haven't been the father for them that I think I should have and like most fathers are cause I was never home for them when they needed me. I was always gone and I was trying to get a career going, I know ...I'd like to say in case any of them should see that I've always been addicted to what I do I love them... love them all. I have my own children and children that I've adopted and I love them but I have never been the father for them that I think fathers should be.

S I can appreciate that because ______________I'm here I'm there and I have two sons and a daughter and I feel the same way but I said something tonight ______________ I asked them what do you think about that do you that... he said he's my dad. He looked at me and said; he's my dad______________ the wife has been the mother the father the lover the dishwasher, but for him just to say, he's my dad he must see you important.
BB Yeah, it makes me happy I almost cried...thank you.

S Maybe we can end that ______________ this is why I wanted to come in here to you first of all, we love you here, and we're going to get you back here in Michigan and to the collection and we hope that we have a chance to meet you somewhere. Oh would you mind signing the, now that I have your attention here and Ray Charles.
BB I'm fixing to do a record with Ray Charles.

S ______________ and we talked about his son also...
BB Oh yeah...you know ah this man I have the greatest respect for...when they mentioned genius they were way off...he's much more to me.

S He had ______________ and five thousand people singing and he preached the sermon.

END OF INTERVIEW