I do it because I still get a kick out of it. I still love performing. It keeps me young.

I don’t like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch.

No one can take it away from you.

I liked blues from the time my mother used to take me to church. I started to listen to gospel music, so I liked that. But I had an aunt at that time, my mother's aunt, who bought records by people like Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson and a few others.

Singing about your sadness unburdens your soul. But the blues hollers shouted about more than being sad. They were also delivering messages in musical code. If the master was coming, you might sing a hidden warning to the other field hands . . . The blues could warn you what was coming. I could see the blues was about survival.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you're going to the bank to borrow money.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it.