Popular quotes about Blues! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 7
I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.
Wynton MarsalisAfter my early days of being a passionate young Elvis fan, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc. I got interested in Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald. Then I got turned on to the blues. I realized how important it was to our music in England at the time. Everyone was into the blues. Then you start looking at the different kinds of blues, and you follow the journey backwards from Chicago to earlier times back down to the Delta to the Memphis Blues.
Ian GillanIt used to be called boogie-woogie, it used to be called blues, used to be called rhythm and blues...It's called rock now.
Chuck BerryI tend to play a lot of blues things at home, because most blues things are basically within a 12-bar pattern.
Marc BolanThe blues are important primarily because they contain the cultural expression and the cultural response to blacks in America and to the situation that they find themselves in. And contained in the blues is a philosophical system at work. And as part of the oral tradition, this is a way of passing along information.
August WilsonThe amazing thing about Sweets [Edison] was that he exactly spoke the way that he played! He was really unique, the one and only. He was one of the greatest Blues players that I ever heard and played with. Nobody can play like Sweets man, nobody! Most of us, musicians, frequently quote Sweets' phrases in our solos. Like Lester Young, Sweets had a big influence on us musicians, especially when we play some Blues.
Ray BrownI didn't really grow up listening to blues, because I grew up in the Northwest. It wasn't really the center for blues.
David LynchI've known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that's as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I've known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began - out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don't necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.
B. B. KingNobody can tell you how the blues feel unless they have the blues. We all take it differently.
Otis RushI listened to King Oliver and I listened to Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp... I listened to everything I could that came from that place that they call the blues but, in formality, isn't necessarily the blues.
Eric ClaptonThe blues records of each decade explain something about the philosophical basis of our lives as black people. ... Blues is a basis of historical continuity for black people. It is a ritualized way of talking about ourselves and passing it on.
Sherley Anne WilliamsOur repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things.
Ray DaviesWhen I discovered blues - I was 12-years-old - I didn't discover it in America where it was from; I discovered it from Fleetwood Mac - the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, Saveloy Brown - like British blues interpretations of it,' which then, when I started the liner notes and seeing all these names, I was like, 'Who's Willie Dixon?' Then I go to the record store and ask the guy there and he goes, 'Oh, you don't know anything.' And so, to me, that's the root of most of it anyway.
Paul WellerThere were times I thought I was going to turn to the blues, but then I'd hear better blues players.
Stephen StillsMy dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen.
Jonny LangI 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.
Jelly Roll MortonI am more of a rock guy than I am a blues guy. People get the idea that I am a dyed in the wool blues cat, but I rock out when I do my show you know that.
George ThorogoodThe bottle is where everything sad or mean or confusing can go. And the blues--it's like that bottle. But in the bottle there's a seed that you let grow. Even in the bottle it can grow big and green. It's full of all those feelings that are in there, but beautiful and growing too.
Heidi W. DurrowThere's a difference between the blues of the New Orleans guys and anyone else and the difference is in a chord, but I can't figure the name of it. It's a different chord, and they all make it.
Jimmy RushingSo every time I make a new circuit, a new time around, then I change the show. You can't change the songs; people still want to hear "Lady Sings the Blues" and they still want to hear some of the oldies.
Diana RossSo from Jazz, Blues, R&B, Soul, Classical and Country music, Hip Hop has introduced us to a little bit of everything.
B.J. The Chicago KidI've always loved the blues, ever since I was a kid. It has a depth to it that a lot of contemporary music doesn't have. It has pain and suffering in it, but funny stories, too. And it is built on storytelling, which is something I really love.
Nickolas AshfordI barely notice colors unless I taste them. Not the yellows or the greens. I taste the deeper blues. The darker reds.
David LevithanI don't think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.
Billie HolidayThe blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.
Henry RollinsI had to shoot shotguns for The Blues Brothers. But I don't like that stuff. Too butch for me.
Carrie FisherAn eighty-nine year old kid from Boston playing a blues in New Orleans takes a lot of chutzpah.
George WeinWhat originally established the band was cover songs like Not Fade Away. Then, later on, we got more well-known ones like Satisfaction, which you might say echoed the thinking of, well, any generation you care to name, including the present one. But we didn't set out on bits of paper that we were going to be the voice of a generation. The original aim of the Rolling Stones was to play blues. It wasn't even to play rock music.
William S. BurroughsRock'n'roll is nothing but Boogie Woogie with stuff on top of it. And if you're black, they name it rhythm'n'blues, and if you're white, they name it rock'n'roll. So, I don't give a... You know.
Ike TurnerAfter 'The Blues Brothers,' I wanted to do a good musical number with real dancers and shoot it correctly.
John LandisCountry, 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.
Pokey LaFargeWell, people who are blues purist types are usually the most vocal and the ones that pop up on the websites.
Jonny LangThe Blues scene now is international. In the '50s it was purely something that you would hear in black clubs, played by black musicians, especially in America. But from the '60s onwards it changed
Mick TaylorActor Mike Warren [was my former teammate], who was in Hill Street Blues. There are more, but it's starting to sound like a team reunion at Red Lobster. They were a great bunch of guys and we accomplished a lot together. That's something you don't forget.
Kareem Abdul-JabbarI really don't. I have truly eclectic taste in music and I seem to cycle through phases in terms of to what's inspiring me. I'll go from Beethoven to Sigur Ros; World Music, Brit-pop, Classic Rock, Blues/Jazz, even the odd bit of Heavy metal.
Rachel MinerDon't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.)
Christopher HitchensHave you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.
Nick HornbyThe way Will Moore taught me, and the way I play it, the blues is just something different.
John Lee HookerThe fact I wasn't getting off made me realize that I really had to take a hard look at it and at the type of music that I played, which ranges from ballads to country type stuff to rock and rhythm 'n' blues. It takes in a wider spectrum.
Van MorrisonIf a slave were to raise his voice to his master, he risked all manner of punishment. Yet what was possible in many circumstances was to lift one's voice in song. This was a major ingredient in what is now known as blues and gospel. Slaves may have been regarded as subhuman by their cruel captors, but through music, they were proud and dignified.
Henry Rollins