Blues Music Quotes

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well-known blues musicians.

I want to make a picture that could stand on its own, regardless of what it was a picture of. I've never been a bit interested in the fact that this was a picture of a blues musician or a street corner or something.

It is clear from a common sense viewing of the program that coarse language is a part of the culture of the individuals being portrayed. To accurately reflect their viewpoint and emotions about blues music requires airing of certain material that, if prohibited, would undercut the ability of the filmmaker to convey the reality of the subject of the documentary.

As a comedian, you're kind of like a blues musician; you have to live a little bit.

When I learned to play music, I was listening to blues music. And all the blues music I liked was super simple and stripped down. And then all the hip hop I liked was super simple and stripped down and we always heard that connection.

I've always wanted to visit [Washington]. The Smithsonian has some fantastic archival material on blues music, which I'm really into. There's a ton of stuff I want to do there. but it just never happened.

In blues music, there's a lot of borrowing, so it's often difficult to identify the originator of a song.

There's a lot of women in blues music, lots of strong women and that sort of stuff. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about blues. There were a lot of powerful blues guitar players in the olden times that were women. It's just that when you think about blues, you have this one image in your mind.

I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwrit er. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want.

Logically, when you talkin' about folk music and blues, you find out it's music of just plain people.

I just hope I'm remembered as a good blues musician.

As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music.

A lot of blues music seems like it's moving away from God, or the center, and Gospel music is moving towards it. It's embracing a higher reality. When you look a little closer, the way that I define it or explain it, is that the blues is the naked cry of the human heart, apart from God. People are searching for union with God. They're searching to be home. There's something in people that seeks this union with their creator. Why am I here? Where am I going? What's it all about? Who am I? All this kind of stuff.

Maybe someday you can accuse somebody of being a poseur by selling out and playing blues music, but that's just not going to happen in my lifetime.

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

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

I don't play anything but the blues, but now I could never make no money on nothin' but the blues. That's why I wasn't interested in nothin' else.

Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.

Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It's the rhythm that gets to the kids – they're starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners.

The musicians that didn't know music could play the best blues. I know that I don't want no musicians who know all about music playin' for me.

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.

It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.

It was as though we were a picture, trapped in time: this had been happening for hundreds of years, people sitting in a room, waiting for dinner, and listening to the blues.

If you listen to soul music, or R&B music, or Blues music, a lot of that came from church music and spiritual music, and music has always been a really really powerful tool that people have used to get them closer to God - whatever they define God as. And for me that's always been part of what drew me to it and keeps me coming back for more.

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.

The jazz and blues clubs are like the jazz and blues musicians - they're disappearing.

Simple music is the hardest music to play and blues is simple music.

You have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the Blues.

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

The blues ain't nothing but a good man feelin' bad.

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

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.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

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.

What I consider to be the barometer for what is a rock artist and what is not, is somebody who has a certain element of blues, even a hint of soul or blues music, derivative of African-American blues, folk, spiritual, or gospel.

Facinating." He broke into a wide grin. "I've discovered something, Khufu. This is not Memphis, Egypt." Khufu gave me a sideways look, and I could swear his expression meant, Duh. "I've also discovered a new form of magic called blues music," the man continued. "And barbecue. Yes, you must try barbecue.

From Eden is spoken from the Devil's point of view. I always loved in blues music how the Devil can be a character who walks and talks. So awful is your state that it seems to be a presence around you. I don't really spend time thinking about the nature of God but I'm interested in what people say about God, how it is used to control people and change policies in the physical realm.

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Man, there's no boundary line to art!

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics.

The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues.

We had a missionary zeal about blues music, and I felt, particularly, that Mickie Most was attempting to homogenize, sweeten, and make it accessible for the mass market. Which is understandable if you're the producer, but aggravating if you're the artist.

My mother always told me, even if a song has been done a thousand times, you can still bring something of your own to it. I'd like to think I did that.

Everything comes out in blues music: joy , pain , struggle . Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.

Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. It's about a man and a woman. So the pain and the struggle in the blues is that universal pain that comes from having your heart broken. Most blues songs are not about social statements.