When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’
The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.
Critics don’t buy records. They get ’em free.
Working with Benny was important for me and for black musicians in general.
A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.
A Jazz performance centers upon the process of creation. The final objective is not only the finished product, but the path and process taken towards it.
If you have something in your life worth celebrating, you can put it in a blues song.
I prefer no one to teach me. I prefer to swing on my own.
I have music inside me and I’m very lucky to be able to play music and that’s the way that I try to do it.
Don’t say Aretha is making a comeback, because I’ve never been away!
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
I’m not much on gimmicks. I never have been because they don’t last.
I remember Glenn Miller coming to me once, before he had his own band, saying, How do you do it? How do you get started? It’s so difficult. I told him, I don’t know but whatever you do don’t stop. Just keep on going.
I was probably six years old when I first sang before an audience.
I started to like blues, I guess, when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There was something about it, because nobody else played that kind of music.
The expression of freedom that is Jazz improvisation mirrors the ethos of the best parts of society.
Give it a good go, try to have fun at it, try to pass on some good notes and some good sounds to your fans, and I don’t think you will have wasted your time.
Music is born out of the inner sounds within a soul.
Jazz is America’s classical music.
I’d take my guitar and play on the streets. A gospel song would get me a pat on the head. But a blues would get me a dime. So you see why I stuck with the blues.
I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.