If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don't think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.

By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.