John Mayall

Working with people, the musical part is one thing but the personal part is totally different and just as critical. If the friendship is there and it’s a lasting friendship, then it will take care of itself.

I also went to art school and learned to play a piano there, but I play by ear.

The blues fitted in with the early 60s, the social way of life at the time.

I do the best I can with any instrument I get attracted to. But they’re just tools in order for you to express yourself and that’s really the upshot of it.

Everybody I know in England was raised on Mose Allison.

I keep healthy and I’m always very active and always have been so. I don’t really see any signs of aging yet. Music keeps you young.

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.

The first time I ever had to go overseas for music was to play the Royal Festival Hall in London, singing in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, and that week was insane: Thursday I rehearse with the orchestra; Friday I sing two songs in front of 2,500 people, which I have never done before; and the next day I go to Abbey Road to record with Herbie Hancock; and then I am playing a pub in south London somewhere, and nobody cares because London have lost some sporting match; and then I go home and I’m standing in front of my washing machine, putting my unmentionables into the dryer, and in that instant, I just looked at myself and said ‘This life is going to be strange’.

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

My style is to just play. The more “live” you capture your music-the more unthought-out-the more magical it is.

Man, you tell a story.

I went through a struggle, and I really needed to get myself together and connect with my purpose, which is music.

The idea is more important than the style you’re playing in.

I could see that Bukka was born to be a bluesman, and I wondered if the same was true of me. I worried that I didn’t have his talent – or the talent of someone like Blind Lemon or T-Bone. I felt something beautiful inside Bukka’s soul. Even if I didn’t follow his style, I was moved by his sincerity. He loved telling stories, and used his blues to tell them. His blues was the book of his life. He sang about his rough times and fast time and loving times and angry times. He’d entertain at a party for two hundred people with the same enthusiasm as a party for twenty. Bukka gave it his all. His music had a consistency I admired. Like all the great bluesmen, he said, I am what I am. I wondered if I could be that steady and strong.

Music is your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.

It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

I’d like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I’ve heard.

The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn’t be able to do that.

Play the music not the instrument.