When you don't have much money, you worry that they'll just put you in the ground someplace and your loved ones won't know where you are.

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.

I don't think it's meant for man to know everything at once.

No one can take it away from you.

When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

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.

There's a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There's also happiness to it if you want to hear it.