Man, you don't know how I felt that afternoon when I heard that VOICE and it was my own VOICE.

There was a time when I had the blues - I mean I really had it bad. I couldn't pay my light bill and I couldn't pay my rent and I really had the blues. But today I can pay my rent and I can pay the light bill and I still got the blues. So I must been born with 'em... That's my religion - the blues is my religion.

Theres no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, Im playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

The thing about San Francisco is that it has this kind of magical quality.

I went down to my baby's house and I sit down on her steps. She said, now come on in now, you know, my husband just left.

I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.

That Mississippi sound, that Delta sound is in them old records. You can hear it all the way through.