I'd rather not sing than sing quiet.

I don't know what happened. I just exploded. I'd never sung like that before. I used to stand still and sing simple, but you can't sing like that in front of a rock band. You have to sing loud and move wild with all that in back of you. Now, I don't know how to perform any other way.

Gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer.

If you can get them once, man, get them standing up when they should be sitting down, sweaty when they should be decorous, smile when they should be applauding politely-and I think you sort of switch on their brain, man, so that makes them say: 'Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.' Whoooooo! It's life. That's what rock and roll is for, turn that switch on, and man, it can all be.

It's not what isn't, it's what you wish was that makes unhappiness.

When everything is together - the band, me, the audience, it's boss! It's just like magic.

People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.