Quotes About Blues

Nowadays blues in particular has a wide, wide, wide, wide net of everything that's called blues. I think if somebody's coming to it in the last ten years or whatever, or even fifteen years, what their experience is what is called blues is different from mine. I have to expand my range of what's been called the blues. I think somebody who's new to it would have to go back and to see what is called blues now, where it came from. If that makes sense.

See, I have a different type of music from other peoples. They playing the other kind of blues, and I'm playing cotton-patch blues.... Ain't nobody now can play the blues that I play.

I used to listen to country and western and blues, John Lee Hooker, spirituals, the Bluegrass Boys, and Eddie Arnold. There was a radio station that come on everyday with country, spirituals, and the blues.

What excited me when I first came into it was the performing aspect and doing blues-oriented material, rock/blues oriented stuff, basic stuff, basic what they call rock 'n' roll.

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

The early years when I was starting, blues player, you wasn't always welcome in a lot of the other places. People usually have preconceived ideas about blues music. They always feel that it's depressing and that it's just something that a guy sit out on a stool, grab a guitar, and just start singing or mumbling or whatever.

I didn't really grow up listening to blues, because I grew up in the Northwest. It wasn't really the center for blues.

You don't have to live the blues to play the blues.

I want to sing using a throatsinging style, like for example kargyraa, but at the same time sing it like a normal way. Maybe I will try some opera. To sing a melody, and to sing not only Tuvan traditional melodies, but I would like to try Western classics, blues. I think Tuvan music and American blues are very close to each other.

The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning.

It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Blues is what I love, and blues is what I always do.

But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.

Most blues don't have a beginning, middle, or end. You just cut a couple slices of blues.

I do not claim any of the creation of the blues, although I have written many of them even before Mr. Handy had any blues published. I heard them when I was knee-high to a duck.

This is something I think that blues music, or folk music, and all those particular genres that have a perspective about life deal with - where the difficulties of life are seen as something that are very natural and nothing to be embarrassed about, and something that we all go through; something that's part of our share of humanity. And it accepts those difficulties and pain as such. I think there's a wonderful forgiveness that can come over you, if you have that perspective on it.

The world has made everything else and still it can't make peace. And the reason it can't make peace is because of the evil, ignorance and stupidity. I have songs that explain these facts. And that's the blues.

A lot of people relate me to the blues but I don't think it's a hindrance at this point. I've been doing it long enough that I can do different things and be accepted.

I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny, but the more hurtin' the music was, the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself, but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.

I woke up this mornin' Feelin' round for my shoes Know 'bout I got these, Old walkin' blues.

Rock & Roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back the beat so you could dream. A whole generation running with a Fender bass...The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music? Die for it. Isn't it pretty? Wouldn't you die for something pretty?Perhaps I should die. After all, all the great blues singers did die. But life is getting better now.I don't want to die. Do I? - Lou Reed (1965-1968)

If you can't play the Blues you might as well hang it up.

In blues, classical and jazz, you get more revered with age.

'Tailgate Blues' is kind of a lyrical masterpiece of a country song.

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.

When you look at so much of what we all love, there's either soul-based to it, or it's the blues. It's really the beginnings of any kind of music. It really is; it all starts there. Because after that, it's music of the moment.

You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues...And you know it don't come easy.

I was born swinging and clapped my hands in church as a little boy, but I've grown up and I like to do things other than just swing. But blues can do more than just swing.

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

Ain't but one kind of blues and that consists of a male and female that's in love.

My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.

Blues music is becoming more and more popular than it ever was. I'm always meeting people on the road that are really young, and are guitar players.... male and female.

Country, blues, rock 'n' roll, these are things that anybody can sing - male, female, person of color. From wherever you are in the world, you can sing this.

Ritchie Blackmore was a huge early influence on me, but after that I had to find my own way ... Johann Sebastian Bach was probably the most influential guy ever on me ... Vivaldi, Beethoven and eventually Paganini ... all of a sudden I was thinking in all these other areas, instead of blues riffs.

Up north, you could find these radio stations with no name on the dials that played pre-rock 'n' roll things - country blues. We would hear Slim Harpo or Lightnin' Slim and gospel groups, the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. I was so far north, I didn't even know where Alabama was.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment. I also will use any gadget or device that I find that helps me achieve the sort of sound on the guitar that I want to get.

If there is a blues song, it just goes in one ear and out the other. But other than that, if it stays with you and when we are all 90, we're going to look back at those songs, and it's going to be emotional. And when someone plays it, and you know it, and you're going to go, "I know that song and I love it."

The Blues? It's the mother of American music. That's what is is - the source.

Wild women don't get the blues.

Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't.

The Progressive Blues Experiment, Johnny Winter... and Still Alive and Well is my favorite rock record

I grew up listening to blues and rock 'n' roll and other music, but, legitimately, the Stones is one of my favorite bands in the world.

I was backstage at the House of Blues in L.A where I was about to perform, and Stevie Wonder and Prince turned up at my dressing room together! Stevie started beat boxing and Prince started singing one of my songs, all of a sudden it was like I was in a cypher with these incredible artists.

I must feel the fire of my soul so my intellectual blues can set others on fire.

What about a blues in W, in the key of W.

Before I left, I opened a lot of doors for a lot of people to play the blues.

I know whites buy more records than blacks. So, I wanted to be able to make the most money that I could. Pop is for both whites and blacks, but if I just stuck to rhythm and blues, it's mostly for blacks. I didn't want to do that. So like I said, I wanted to get the most out of it that I could, so I thought that pop was the way to go.

My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it.

All blues singers are great liars.