You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.

You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.

Honey, if you've had your eye on a piece of talent and that chick down the road has been getting all the action, then you know what you gotta do... Try A Little Bit Harder.

It used to make me unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned how to make feeling work for me... I don't know, I just want to feel as much as I can, it's what 'soul' is all about.

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.

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

After they see me, when their mothers are feeding them all that cashmere sweater and girdle ----- [expletive deleted by the New York Times], maybe they'll have a second thought - that they can be themselves and win.