Blues Music Quotes

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. ~ William Eggleston

They say the blues is sad, but when B.B. sings 'I got a sweet little angel, I love the way she spreads her wings,' that don't sound too sad to me! ~ Buddy Guy

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. ~ John Mayer

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

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. ~ Howlin' Wolf

She's no lady. Her songs are all unbelievably unhappy or lewd. It's called Blues. She sings about sore feet, sexual relations, baked goods, killing your lover, being broke, men called Daddy, women who dress like men, working, praying for rain. Jail and trains. Whiskey and morphine. She tells stories between verses and everyone in the place shouts out how true it all is. ~ Ann-Marie MacDonald

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. ~ Joan Osborne

Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin. ~ Eric Clapton

Blues musicians don't retire. They drop. ~ Buddy Guy

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. ~ Walter Becker

Sounds like the blues are composed of feeling, finesse, and fear. ~ Billy Gibbons

When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor. ~ Bob Dylan

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. ~ Rick Riordan

I didn't get into music to become a blues musician, or a country musician. I'm a singer-songwriter. In my book that means I get to do whatever I want. ~ Justin Townes Earle

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. ~ James A. Baldwin

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

At first the music almost repelled me, it was so intense, and this man made no attempt to sugarcoat what he was trying to say, or play. It was hard-core, more than anything I had ever heard. After a few listenings I realized that, on some level, I had found the master, and that following this man's example would be my life's work. ~ Eric Clapton

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around. ~ Jimi Hendrix

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way. ~ PJ Harvey

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. ~ Wynton Marsalis

I grew up listening to AM radio in the '70s and hearing all of that great soul and rhythm and blues music, which definitely influenced the way I sing. But singing gospel has made me a much more humble person. There are so many people who were geniuses who only a few people knew about when they were alive. ~ Patty Griffin

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. ~ Ian Astbury

If you don't live it, you don't believe it. ~ Paul Harvey

The blues and jazz will live forever ... So will the Delta and the Big Easy. ~ Jack Nicholson

My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues. ~ Mark Knopfler

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. ~ B.B. King

Some of the greatest blues music is some of the darkest music you've ever heard. ~ Bruce Springsteen

...While many who have debated the image of female sexuality have put "explicit" and "self-objectifying" on one side and "respectable" and "covered-up" on the other, I find this a flawed means of categorization. [...] There is a creative possibility for liberatory explicitness because it may expand the confines of what women are allowed to say and do. We just need to refer to the history of blues music - one full of raunchy, irreverent, and transgressive women artists - for examples. Yet the overwhelming prevalence of the Madonna/whore dichotomy in American culture means that any woman who uses explicit language or images in her creative expression is in danger of being symbolically cast into the role of whore regardless of what liberatory intentions she may have. ~ Imani Perry

He not busy being born is busy dying ~ Steve Jobs

No, I don't really think there's a "golden age" of anything. I think now is pretty fucking amazing. I'm probably the least nostalgic person. I don't think there was a golden time for music. There's always been people making great music standing here on Earth and saying, "This is where I stand, and this is what I've got to say, and this is how I feel about it." The industry of music has always been lousy. The stuff on the top, the stuff that rises, it's always been bad, right from when we first started getting into music. You just have to dig deeper. You have to look inward and outward. And then, when you make music, you can't just copy people. You can't just say, "This is how this was done, I'll do the same." You have to find what makes it good and kind of drag that kicking and screaming into your own world. Music is like a time capsule with no bearing. It doesn't really carry a message from the time when it was made. 1930s blues music doesn't really give you a sense of what it was like to live in America in 1930. It relates to your heartbeat now and where you are and what you're doing. I've said this in other interviews, but when I listen to Iggy Pop singing "Search And Destroy," it has no reference to Vietnam in my world. How could it? I'm from a small town in the middle of England. That's how music works. Looking back in music isn't even really looking back. Music's traveled to where you are. ~ J Spaceman

For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall. ~ Eric Clapton

With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues. ~ Brian Setzer

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. ~ Joan Osborne

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

Who Am I?
I'm a creator, a visionary, a poet. I approach the world with the eyes of an artist, the ears of a musician, and the soul of a writer. I see rainbows where others see only rain, and possibilities when others see only problems. I love spring flowers, summer's heat on my body, and the beauty of the dying leaves in the fall. Classical music, art museums, and ballet are sources of inspiration, as well as blues music and dim cafes. I love to write; words flow easily from my fingertips, and my heart beats rapidly with excitement as an idea becomes a reality on the paper in front of me. I smile often, laugh easily, and I weep at pain and cruelty. I'm a learner and a seeker of knowledge, and I try to take my readers along on my journey. I am passionate about what I do. I learned to dream through reading, learned to create dreams through writing, and learned to develop dreamers through teaching. I shall always be a dreamer. Come dream with me. ~ Sharon M. Draper

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. ~ Alan Price

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. ~ Jack White

I listen to blues music a lot and that's a good person feeling bad and celebrating that pain by releasing it in that kind of joyous fashion. ~ Henry Rollins

I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues. ~ David Johansen

Christianity, as it was first given to the slaves [...] was to be used strictly as a code of conduct which would enable its devotees to participate in an afterlife; it was from its very inception among the black slaves, a slave ethic. [...] One of the very reasons Christianity proved so popular was that it was the religion, according to older Biblical tradition, of an oppressed people. The struggles of the Jews and their long-sought "Promised Land" proved a strong analogy for the black slaves. ~ LeRoi Jones

I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory. ~ Muddy Waters

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

I was into playing American music, especially the blues. ~ Mark Knopfler

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

In the early days of slavery, Christianity's sole purpose was to propose a metaphysical resolution for the slave's natural yearnings for freedom, and as such, it literally made life easier for him. The secret African chants and songs were about Africa, and expressed the African slave's desire to return to the land of his birth. The Christian Negro's music became an an expression of his desire to "cross Jordan" and "see his Lord. ~ LeRoi Jones

Charles laughingly observed,'Gospel and the blues are really, if you break it down, almost the same thing. It's just a question of whether you're talkin' about a woman or God. ~ Craig Werner

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. ~ Art Blakey

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. ~ Dan Auerbach

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. ~ B.B. King

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. ~ Dion DiMucci

When the slaves left Africa, they left us this music. They left us blues. ~ Youssou N'Dour

Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter of all time. I was in awe of him. But his music wasn't my music. My music was the blues. ~ Jerry Leiber

So blues music is about all the trials and tribulations people got in their hearts from living. It's about what folks want but don't have. Blues is a song begging for its life. ~ Pam Munoz Ryan

Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy. ~ Dan Castellaneta

My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned to myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the claims that shackle the spirit." - Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music ~ Dennis DeSantis

In my opinion, there is a huge lack of imaginative, unconventional music being created by artists today and what little there is, goes widely unappreciated by the masses. 'Port Blue' is my attempt at re-creating the music I want to hear and the emotions I want to feel."
"If by chance you ever feel as though you've come to know these songs, please consider yourself a friend because in a manner of speaking, you know me. This music is my heart and soul. This is who I am." (Adam R. Young, 2006) ~ Adam Young

Human lives are conmposed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of an individual's life. ~ Milan Kundera

The message of music was also the first thing what I learned from my first teacher. She was an organist too and she was very devoted to what she played, so she had a respect for every piece and she felt that she is not allowed to add something of her own. ~ Kurt Masur

What I want to do, is play music for somebody who believe in me. ~ Luther Allison

Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene. ~ Dierks Bentley

After a few sips, he picked up his sax and started jamming with the storm.

Most days, Rivers meditated twice, when he awoke and again in the evening before writing or reading. But he still found a special relaxation and renewal in solitary playing. Contemplation through music was different from other reflective experiences, in part, because his visual associations were set free to mutate, morph, and meander; while the other senses were occupied in fierce concentraction on breathing, blowing, fingering, and listening. Within the flow of this activity, his awareness would land in different states of consciousness, different phases of time, and easily moved between revisualization of experience and its creation.

The playing dislodged hidden feelings, primed him for recognizing the habitually denied, sheathed the sword of lnaguage, and loosened the shield and armor of his character. His contemplative playing purged him of worrisome realities, smelted off from his center the dross of eperience, and on those rare and cherished days, left only the refinement of flickering fire. Although he was more aware of his emotions, the music and dance of thought kept them at arm's length, Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquility." . . .

As he played, his mind's eye became the fisher's bobber, guided by a line of sound around the driftwood of thought, the residue of his life, which materialized from nowhere and sank back into nothingness without his weav ~ Jay Richards

I don't know what Swiss musicians need to do to be heard beyond the borders of their own country. It was always clear to me that I belong everywhere, that music belongs everywhere. It simply never occurred to me that I had to limit myself to a country. ~ Sophie Hunger

San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean you. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. ~ George Halas

He wakes into music the green forest-bowers. ~ Willis Gaylord Clark

Hard rock, heavy metal, stoner rock, doom metal-it all dragged itself up out of the swamp called the blues. ~ Grady Hendrix

When you win a Grammy ... you're thinking about you winning. It is amazing. Your peers and folks in the record business are saying, 'This is what we think of you.' And that's why the Grammy will always be, to me, the ultimate in what you get as far as a music trophy, because it is the one. ~ Yolanda Adams

Civilization is built by the artist, by the literary exponent, by the ability to generate beauty and music and new methods of expression. ~ Irshad Manji

Every talent you have is not wasted. It is there because of a reason and God will open that door when the right time comes along to use it. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Music gives infinite strength. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

My inspiration is always what I think my fans want to listen to. I often write about social problems. If I'm not going through it or I haven't gone through it, I want to make sure it touches someone. That's what I base my music on. ~ Jenni Rivera

Music has the power to transcend your physical being and take you up. Because music has a metaphysical quality it really makes your life beautiful. ~ Wayne Coyne

We have seen the damage already caused to the music industry and we have to continue to make the public and government bodies globally aware of the damage that will happen if DVD piracy is not brought under control. ~ Callum McDougall

There is a complexity and layering that goes on with this kind of thing, so the music is slightly repetitive and when I say repetitive it's in the same tradition as people like Steve Reich or Erik Satie or even WC. ~ DJ Spooky

I tell people all the time, I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. But, I didn't wanna do all of this. I would've been satisfied to do it, like, on the weekends among friends, and to have a regular job. ~ Mos Def

My way towards God has been to write music. ~ John Tavener

When you play a piece of music there are so many different ways you could play it. You keep asking yourself what if. You try this and you say what if and you try that. When you buy a CD you get one answer to the question. You never get the what if. ~ Helen DeWitt

I'm free from holding personal anger because I can express what I want through my music. ~ Yoko Ono

Huffing from her exertion, her face flushed and her expression happy, she looked toward the door - and went still.
Dare pushed past Trace and went to the wall unit to turn down the music.
Into the silence, Chris asked, "Everyone having fun?"
"God, Chris," Dare said. "Trace is going to kill you if you don't shut up."
"Really?" Priss struck a pose of annoyance, one hip cocked out, her arms crossed, her chin elevated. "And here Molly and Chris assured Matt that you weren't the type to cause bodily harm."
"They must have been jesting." Trace was well used to Chris's warped sense of humor, so Chris wasn't in any danger. But Matt . . . Trace zeroed in on him. In a tone more lethal for the quietness of it, he asked, "What are you doing?"
"Harmless dancing?" Matt replied in a nervous question, unsure of the right answer.
Priss suddenly stepped in front of Matt, which left Matt bemused. "Don't act snarky with him, Trace. I asked him to dance with me. We had some time to kill before this crud comes out of my hair. And you were nowhere to be found."
Matt pulled her aside, earning a glare from Trace. He quickly held up his hands, palms out, to prove he wasn't touching her. "Speaking of time, we can go wash your hair right now, if everyone will just excuse us."
"I need a minute with Priss first." Trace eyed her militant stance, and had to fight a smile. She had a backbone of steel. He liked that. "Alone. ~ Lori Foster

Drazen's lips were more than lips; they were the physical memory of myself before I shut out sex to pursue music. ~ C.D. Reiss

I don't think my music really provokes that kind of energy that makes people want to grab AKs and rally through the streets. I don't think my music is gangsta in that sense. ~ Fashawn

The music was intended to replicate or even enhance the mind-altering experiences of the psychedelic drugs. They were using electric guitars, wah-wah pedals, loop music to create ostinato patterns, electric organs, synthesizers (nobody even had any idea what that was at the time, but it was cool to throw it into a conversation), electro-mechanical polyphonic tape replay keyboards, fuzz box effects, backward tapes, you name it. Anything went ~ Karl Wiggins

Eric's performance is an awesome and entirely honest expression of the pain and beauty of his music. To watch him play is like riding on the tail of a dragon, but he is so gentle with his rider, you forget how high up you are or how intense the ride is. He is perhaps the most generous performer I have ever watched, every bit of himself is given to the audience. He's like a Marina Abramovic with a piano, completely and deeply committed, regardless of that pain. ~ Tea Leoni

No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward. ~ Gail Carson Levine

For so long Versace couture was identified with celebrities and music, which I love. But at the same time it could overwhelm the clothes. ~ Donatella Versace

I do more writing by myself than with anybody else. My best thing is sitting ... around somewhere with a guitar, and having an idea. You never know where it'd come from. Songwriting is a God-given talent. ~ Charlie Daniels

If music is food for the soul, lessons are food for knowledge what feeds the heart..... Love ~ Joyce Guo

Growing up Southern is a privilege, really. It's more than where you were born, it's an idea and state of mind that seems imparted at birth. It's more than loving fried chicken, football, beer, and country music. It's being hospitable and devoted to screen porches, magnolias, red velvet cake, coca cola, and each other. We don't become southern--we're born that way. ~ Hank Williams Jr.