--- ---  # Quincy Jones: Why B.B. Was the King by [Quincy Jones](https://time.com/author/quincy-jones/) ## Quincy Jones May 19, 2015 9:10 PM UTC  Musician Quincy Jones (L) presents an award to musician B.B. King onstage during the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz honoring B.B. King event held at the Kodak Theatre on October 26, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Musician Quincy Jones (L) presents an award to musician B.B. King onstage during the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz honoring B.B. King event held at the Kodak Theatre on October 26, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.Alexandra Wyman—Getty Images by [Quincy Jones](https://time.com/author/quincy-jones/) ## Quincy Jones May 19, 2015 9:10 PM UTC Everything B.B. ever did, I loved — just the way he’d bend his notes. Everything. He represented all the different stages of blues, and I don’t think anybody resonated more emotionally and spiritually than B.B. He took the essence of the culture of what blues and R&B was, and he brought it around the world — until he was 89. I first met B.B. King working on the film _For Love of Ivy,_ starring Sidney Poitier. I did the score to that, and Maya Angelou, who was in her 30s at the time, wrote the lyrics. She wrote two songs, “B.B. Jones” and “You Put it on Me,” and B.B. recorded them. They were hits! That was a great trio, the three of us. I think they had a little romantic relationship, there, too — she didn’t tell me until about four years ago. I said, “Honey, if you’d talked to me first, I would have told you that blues singers don’t get the blues, they give the blues!” B.B. was the king because he took the blues from dirt-poor, smoke-in-the-air juke joints all the way to the big concert halls. He started out picking cotton — he was all the way back in the dark side of our country. And his music came from the dark side — it’s a positive way of escaping that darkness. When I was studying with Nadia Boulanger, the legendary composer and teacher, in Paris, she used to say, “Your music can never be more than you are as a human being.” And B.B. King was a great human being. It’s painful to know that he’ll never answer the phone again. _Quincy Jones is a producer, composer and philanthropist._ B.B. King: Quincy Jones Remembers the Blues Legend ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3889749/bb-king-quincy-jones-maya-angelou/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3889749/bb-king-quincy-jones-maya-angelou/"},"headline":"Quincy Jones: Why B.B. Was the King","datePublished":"2015-05-19T21:10:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T07:27:44.219Z","description":"The legendary producer remembers the king of the blues, their work on a Sidney Poitier film and B.B.'s relationship with Maya Angelou","url":"https://time.com/3889749/bb-king-quincy-jones-maya-angelou/","keywords":["remembrance","celebrities","Music","Maya Angelou","b.b. king"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3339c36b2c5089c3/698850d235ba6f2a4dc0d5e5/quincy-bb.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Quincy Jones","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/quincy-jones/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3339c36b2c5089c3/698850d235ba6f2a4dc0d5e5/quincy-bb.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Thelonious Monk Institute Honors B.B. King - Show","caption":"Thelonious Monk Institute Honors B.B. King - Show","creditText":"Alexandra Wyman—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/remembrance/","name":"remembrance"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3889749/bb-king-quincy-jones-maya-angelou/","name":"Quincy Jones: Why B.B. Was the King"}}]}] ```