That time B.B. King told me how playing guitar was like telling the truth

bev davies photo

By Steve Newton

I’ve been very fortunate to have interviewed several legendary bluesmen over the last 40 years, guys like Albert King, Albert Collins, Buddy Guy, Roy Buchanan, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

But the very first legendary bluesman I ever interviewed was B.B. King.

In January of 1984 he was playing a string of shows at the Plazazz Showroom in North Vancouver, and I went and chatted with him in his hotel room.

At one point in the conversation I mentioned to B.B. that he’d been quoted as saying that playing guitar was like telling the truth, so he kindly explained just what he meant by that.

Have a listen (you’ll need to crank the volume a bit):

To hear the full audio of my 25-minute interview with B.B. King from 1984 subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with musicians since 1982.