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BB and his beloved Lucille

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"That's the way Sam Phillips was with the people I worked with, all he did was make sure it was on the tape properly.

"But everything I record I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do, and then just go for it.

"I never know what the public's going to like anyway."

Sam Phillips on "achieving perfection through imperfection"

Do you find it frustrating that a lot of people who hear you this time around, perhaps only associate you with the BB King they heard playing with U2 or singing Thrill Is Gone?

"I'd be a fool if I didn't, but then I've never been lucky getting airplay. In 1951 the Bihari Brothers sent me a telegram telling me that I'd sold 100,000 copies of Three O'Clock In The Morning.

"Although that made me pretty happy, I knew even back then that it was the airplay that had sold that record.

"The only other time I was really helped was with Thrill Is Gone, all the other tunes I recorded may have sold as many or gone over well, but I know never got radio coverage.

"The problem is that a lot of the blues stations are late on Saturday night and like a lot of people, I ain't no vampire!"

A sharply-attired BB plays Thrill Is Gone. Wot no cymbals?!

Do you still feel that some people think Blues guitar is a poor relation to jazz? You once said that you practised all the time trying to put jazz inflections into your own playing…

"I don't practice trying to play jazz these days; in the early years I used to have tutors from my band help me play jazz tunes just so they could make it easier on themselves.

"All my band are still better musicians than I am! I like jazz, rock 'n' roll, some hip hop – I can't think of any music I don't like.

"I don't care for the music when they're talking bad about women because I think women are God's greatest gift to the planet - I just like music."

Old photographs of you show you holding a whole range of guitars, everything from a Fender Stratocaster to one of those big Gibson Switchmaster models. Bearing in mind that a lot of those models were only just being made back then, were you always a sucker for a new guitar?

"Not really – I was just a sucker for any guitar I could get and manage to hold on to! I was from the country and we didn't have money like people did in the towns.

"You could save and save, but still rarely get enough money to buy a nice guitar.

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