Quotes About Blues

If I'm soloing, I usually try to start with a theme, which will often stem from the blues.

No les interesa la pintura. Catherine Guinness [véase Introducción] no se puso pesada hasta el último día, cuando empezó con esa cosa tan fastidiosa que hacen los ingleses de preguntar y preguntar: «¿Qué es exactamente el pop art?». Era como cuando entrevistamos a ese chico del blues, Albert King, para Interview, y ella le preguntó: «¿Qué es exactamente el soul?».

We had an enormous sunset, a smashing of gaudy colours, apocalyptic reds and purples such as must have appeared on the punished bodies of great saints, blues heavy and rich. I woke Iva, and we watched it, hand in hand. Her hand was cool and sweet. I had a slight fever.

I love the language of, you know, the old black country man with a blues guitar and... boots and the quick banter.

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.

Whenever I was in the dressing room on my own, I'd start playing blues to myself. One night, Bob Daisley, the bass player, came in and said, 'You know, Gary, you should make a blues album next. It might be the biggest thing you ever did.' I laughed. He laughed, too. But I did, and he was right, and it was.

I'm a big Bob Dylan fan. I'm also a blues geek.

Johnny Winter doesn't know the word 'subtlety.' But it works, it works.

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

Basically, I like anything with guts - Lead Belly, Bill Big Broonzy, Johnny Winter, the Stones.

Johnny Winter is one of the best blues players in the world. He's very underrated.

The parallel development in American blues to the British movement has resulted in Johnny Winters.

I saw B.B. King in concert one time where he had this guy that would bring him out a glass of water and towel to wipe his forehead with.

I grew up listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and lots of blues, R&B and Motown.

I love early blues like Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf. I listened to the way these people sang, and it was just beautiful - straight from the soul. That, for me, was an inspiration.

A lot of my friends, they think I grew up to rock and roll, but I didn't. I grew up to Hank Williams, Jimmy Reid, Howlin' Wolf, listening to a race record, blues.

I'd go over to friends' houses and ask them to put on some Howlin' Wolf, and they wouldn't know what I was talking about. Then, when they would come over to my house, I'd play them some blues. Their parents wouldn't let them come back. The blues were still called 'race records' back then.

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.

The idea that Americans favor politicians who either remind them of themselves or can imagine what their selves are like because they too have struggled and sung the blues, is, like very best theories of human behavior, immune to falsification by mere evidence.

There's a very thin line between rock and funk. Funk is like a dirtier blues, and so is rock. They're close cousins.

Everybody thinks I'm, like, a bad boy. I've had my day, but I just sit at home and play the blues mostly.

The blues is so expressive - nostalgic but not sentimental, mournful but not pathetic, so humble and close to the earth. It's a nuance-filled thing.

The blues is also existential and offers a sense of mature reflection that enabled it to be the leitmotif of modern life.

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.