Quotes About Blues

I would think, to me, growing up in the south, growing up with all the gospel music, singing in the church and having that rhythm and blues - the blues background was my big inspiration.

I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.

I didn't grow up on country and blues, I was just a kid listening to VH1 and then I realized I needed to expand my musical horizons. Now I have a deep appreciation for southern heritage music.

I got the blues. I got the blues. that dog loved and trusted me and I let it walk away.

I believe in blues, and I believe that it's been misrepresented.

Music is in Mississippi's DNA, whether it's the blues, country music, folk, or rock 'n' roll. It's not just a source of cultural pride, but also a strong contributor to our economy.

I would sit on the street corners in my hometown of Indianola, Mississippi, and I would play. And, generally, I would start playing gospel songs.

If I go into the Mississippi Delta at pitch black midnight and put on a Robert Johnson record, it's hard to sit in the car because it's pretty powerful.

For guitar players especially, blues is the foundation of rock and roll. You take country music and rock and roll and jazz and you mix it together, and that's my basic makeup.

James Brown came from that hard, rough life that I came from. He took the blues and added rhythm to it. And he always had the most funkiest band; I liked the way he took his words and mixed it in with the band.

You can't seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues - you can't seperate it. Because that's where it all started, and that's where it all come from - that's where I learned to keep rhythm - in church.

I grew up listening to Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, guys with blues backgrounds.

My first concert was Chicago and Moody Blues. I was 15 years old.

The Moody Blues was very big in France, because they liked that we were basically playing blues.

The Moody Blues were a blues band, so when we got discovered, we were taken to London. That's where we started to make it. That's where the record labels were. That's where the action was.

The way Will Moore taught me, and the way I play it, the blues is just something different.

I still like to play the blues more than anything else.

But what I like to sing mostly is blues and cabaret style.

As you grow older, you learn to appreciate all the artistry. I'm actually on my way back to the blues, you know, that my mothers and fathers liked.

Solace? That's why God made fermented beverages and the blues.

I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop.

There were others of course - The Velvet Undergound, the Doors- who took risks in the 1960s, when no one knew where any of it was going. Before them were the Beats and before the Beats the avant-garde artists, the futurists, Fluxus, and before that, the blues, outsider music, a mourning for what's expected but will never happen, so why not dance and play and forget for a few moments that we're all alone anyway?

You gotta pay your dues to sing the blues.

Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you. I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now Suddenly This rain.