From Meeting Eric Clapton
I guess I've earned the right to make a few observations about life, since I am now an old man of 81. And one thing I know for sure: Age has nothing to do with friendship. Neither does race. Looking back over my long career as a bluesman, I know that three of my friendships -- with guitarists Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Jimi Hendrix -- stand out for me. Each of these men has given me so much more than I ever gave them.I first met Eric in 1967 at Café Au Go Go in Manhattan, when he was a youngster of 22 performing with Cream. He saw me in the audience and pointed me out. After the show, we got up onstage and made some music together. Eric pulls people in, and he's been a good friend to me ever since. We've never talked about this, but I believe he and I bonded because neither of us had what you would call a normal upbringing.
I grew up very, very poor on a plantation in Kilmichael, Mississippi. While Eric had a lot of advantages I didn't, he was raised in England thinking his grandparents were his parents, and that his real mom was his older sister. I knew my mother, but she died when I was nine. Then I lived alone until I was 13 and rejoined my father. I can't really say how I survived. I worked for a white family that was very good to me. I milked 20 cows a day. After I finished, I could go to school. I had to walk five miles to the one-room schoolhouse (the white kids had buses). I guess you never miss what you never had. But it all feeds into playing the blues.
Eric told the newspapers in England that the one thing he really enjoyed about visiting the U.S. was meeting B.B. King. He told them, "If you like blues, you should go out and see him." That was a big thing for me. It was before I ever traveled to Great Britain.
Eric appeared on my first music DVD, B.B. King and Friends: A Night of Red Hot Blues, which we recorded live in Los Angeles in 1987. Straight from his tour, he chartered a plane in order to get there one night, though his fingers were sore from playing. I thought that was tremendous. He could have said, "I'm tired. I just finished work," but he didn't. Others were invited who didn't come, but Eric's a man of his word. His heart's as big as I am.
He plays better blues than most of us and may be the best living rock'n'roll guitarist there is. I loved working with him in the studio; he always had good ideas. In 1999 we recorded Riding with the King, which became my first platinum CD and introduced me to a new generation of fans. We won a Grammy for it in 2001, and all I could say to Eric was thanks. No way would it have happened without him.
Jimi and Stevie Ray: Like My Own Kids
Even though there's a 20-year difference in our ages, I don't consider Eric a son. But I did think of Stevie Ray and Jimi as being just as much my kids as my own 15 biological children. Stevie used to come to me just like my sons did and ask about music. As young and handsome as he was, I thought he'd want to talk about girls. But he and Jimi talked to me about chords and how to make certain sounds on the guitar.I first met Jimi Hendrix in the early '60s when he was playing for Little Richard. We toured for a few weeks together, and whenever his group had a break, he'd come by my dressing room and talk. Same thing with Stevie. He'd play something and say, "What do you think of this, B.? How does it sound?"
He would ask for pointers. It made me feel good, like a teacher feels when he sees a student doing well. Stevie was very fast on the guitar. I'd tell him, "If I could play that well, I'd probably play as fast as I could too. But since I don't play so well, I play slower to try to make my music more precise." He would reply, "I just play what I feel."
Stevie was on tour with Eric when he died in that plane crash in 1990. When I first got the news on the radio, I heard it was Eric who had died. Later I found out it was really Stevie. I hurt just as bad. Same thing about Jimi's death in 1970 from drugs -- I heard it on the radio.
I wish I'd gotten to talk to Jimi about the dangers of drugs. But when I knew him he wasn't a superstar yet, and I don't know if he was using then. He didn't really look to me for personal advice, but now I tell younger musicians, "Get high off your music, not drugs or liquor."
Stevie was different. He hung on my every word. Whenever he'd come to see me, he would sit down, lean against my legs and talk. He had a thing about him that just made him lovable.
I've been going back to Indianola, Mississippi, for 40 years now, playing free concerts in the park for children. As recently as 15 years ago, you would see just little black kids there. But in the last 10 years you'd begin to see a rainbow of color. It makes me so proud it seems my buttons are gonna pop off my shirt.
Like Stevie, the children sit down around me, this old white-haired black guy. Kids who are 10, 12, 14, they ask questions like, "Hey, B.B., what about So-and-So?" Their faces light up when I start to talk; they get close and take in every word. You might say I have thousands of children -- Eric, Stevie and Jimi have just been the most popular.
One other thing about Eric Clapton and me. Being from Mississippi, I've got a pretty bad mouth. I swear a lot. Eric never does. He's a real English gentleman. He'll do anything he can to help people. He even opened a rehab center in the Caribbean for folks suffering from addiction. He's the kind of person the world needs more of. Not only as a musician, but as a man. I just love the guy.