I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
I guess you can look at me, and tell I'm the old man. My name is BB King.
My mom brought me up on old Hollywood. I had been living in Los Angeles, respecting old movies and growing up with people that were icons that I got to speak to.
I've always had a thing for old movies, old Hollywood. I've always just loved watching Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. In all of those old movies from the '40s and '50s, women put themselves together so well, with a little bit of drama and elegance. That was fascinating to me growing up.
You used to have to sing and convey emotion, and now, well, technically you can do anything with technology. It sucks for music today, but that's why that old music feels so good to me.
My brother's 21 years older than me, so I grew up doing more adult things. Like listening to old music.
The thing with me is, about that - about rock and all that - years and years of crate-digging, listening to old music, you kind of start to connect the dots. And I was seeing the thread that was connecting everything together, which is pretty much the blues. And everything soul or funk kind of starts with that.
As me being somebody that makes arguably nostalgic music, I cannot stand when somebody tries to make old music just to sound old.
When I was young, my parents made me listen to old music and watch Jimmy Durante. I fell in love with the whole mystique of acting and entertainment.
We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely... change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.
The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one.
I never thought I was going to make a career out of tennis, to be honest, until I was 10 or 11 years old. One of my earliest memories is when I was seven, and I was competing against players that were three, four years older than me. I didn't take it too seriously at the time. I was having a lot of fun.
Whenever anyone calls me 'The new J..K. Rowling,' I think, 'What's wrong with the old one?'
I'd see an old person on the street and start crying. I couldn't understand how people could cope, knowing they only had so long left. It would be like dominoes and then the last one fell and I'm a little heap on the floor. Doctors put me on anti-depressants for a couple of years.
I never thought I was particularly good looking. But when I see old photographs, I realise that I was. I do wish I had known that at the time because beauty is power. I didn't realise how lucky I was to be young, beautiful and in Hollywood. It didn't hit me. Every day I woke up, went to the film studio and just got on with it.
I'm sure there's some awful video of me singing when I was, like, 13 or 15 at my old school that my dad didn't take down off YouTube.
I believe one's sexuality is one's own business. I really don't go around discussing it. Call me 'old school' on that topic.
If it's old school friends that my parents know, then I can stay out till late. But if they don't know them, they want me home by 9 P.M. If I have work, then I don't have a deadline. I don't argue with them. That's how I have been raised, and I'm happy with it.
It's not like my old self - I'm not in character anymore, I'm me. I'm not hiding behind that anymore.
Me and Jerry left because we felt we weren't getting anywhere playing our old songs in tiny clubs. The group was getting stale and staying behind the times.
