If the same phrase in the same place created the right effect, I was perfectly prepared to use it every time. I wasn't worried that I wasn't improvising.

Blues and jazz pulled me away from what was left of my family.

I had always intended to make a living out of playing blues. But I never admitted it to myself. I don't suppose I could have given a logical reason for it ever becoming possible to do so.

I wanted to be able to play guitar. I wanted to be able to make music hurt.

Every musical movement that is big enough has to produce some good musicians who wouldn't have had the incentive to start playing without it.

In 1940 I came across a record by Jimmy Yancey. I can't say how important that record is. From then on, all I wanted to do was play the blues.

I guess music, particularly the blues, is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.