Keith Richards: I found out is that all of the great players are basically such gentlemen. B.B. King and Muddy Waters, both straight up guys. They've got nothing to fear. They always encourage. They're always concerned about other people. They're never self centered. When I look back and think, "Shit, I played with those guys," that's enough. I don't want no money. I mean, thanks for the money, but to have Muddy Waters say to you, "Hey, show me that lick you did..." Everybody's a perennial teenager when it comes to stuff like that.
I don't think you could ever do the blues too many times, quite honestly. It's one of the most fascinating forms of music I know, and I listen to a lot of styles. It's such a honed-down form. It travels well. It can pick up on what's happening and be a viable vehicle for songwriting. It's probably the most important thing that America has ever given to the world. From Leadbelly to B.B. King to Buddy Guy and all the stops in between, it's just such an amazingly flexible form.
The Stones brought two opening acts on the 1969 tour, B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner. “When we played Baltimore,” said King, “there was a white lady that came up with her children and she said, ‘You’re B.B. King.’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She said, ‘Have you ever made any records?’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She said, ‘Well, my kids and I like what you did. Can you tell me where I can get one?’ I mean, she wasn’t joshing me at all, she was serious. And I’m thinking, ‘I’ve been making records since ’49.’”
Photo: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and B.B. King Backstage, Chicago, IL, 1969 by Glen Craig
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