an American roots music experience
"With my little band, I did everything they did with a big band. I made the blues jump." -Louis Jordan
"Simple music is the hardest music to play and blues is simple music." -Albert Collins
"Blues is a natural fact, is something that a fellow lives. If you don't live it you don't have it. Young people have forgotten to cry the blues. Now they talk and get lawyers and things."
-Big Bill Broonzy
"The history of a people is found in its songs." -George Jellinek
In 1908 Handy didn't know anything about the blues and he doesn't know anything about jazz and stomps to this day. I myself figured out the peculiar form of mathematics and harmonies that was strange to all the world but me." -Jelly Roll Morton
"The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning." -John Lee Hooker
"White folks hear the blues come out, but they don't know how it got there." -Ma Rainey
"If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music." -Keith Richards
"You have to understand a bit about the poetry of the blues to know where the references are coming from." -Van Morrison
"When you think of blues, all you think about is crying guitar like B.B. King's guitar. You think about someone crying that their woman's gone. And how bad life is and all that. Why can't it be something happy with the blues? Why can't it have a hip-hop beat to which you can do the dances of today ?" -Ike Turner
"The blues comes right back to a person's feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don't know nothing about the blues, please believe me." -Jimmy Rushing
"But between sets I'd sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places." -Stevie Ray Vaughan
“The blues ain't nothing but a good man feelin' bad” -Leon Redbone
"There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money." -Muddy Waters
"I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory." -Muddy Waters
"You gotta have heart if you want to make it in this business." -Dexter Gordon
"The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues." -Luther Allison
"Blues is a natural fact, is something that a fellow lives. If you don't live it you don't have it. Young people have forgotten to cry the blues. Now they talk and get lawyers and things."
-Big Bill Broonzy
"The history of a people is found in its songs." -George Jellinek
In 1908 Handy didn't know anything about the blues and he doesn't know anything about jazz and stomps to this day. I myself figured out the peculiar form of mathematics and harmonies that was strange to all the world but me." -Jelly Roll Morton
"The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning." -John Lee Hooker
"White folks hear the blues come out, but they don't know how it got there." -Ma Rainey
"If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music." -Keith Richards
"You have to understand a bit about the poetry of the blues to know where the references are coming from." -Van Morrison
"When you think of blues, all you think about is crying guitar like B.B. King's guitar. You think about someone crying that their woman's gone. And how bad life is and all that. Why can't it be something happy with the blues? Why can't it have a hip-hop beat to which you can do the dances of today ?" -Ike Turner
"The blues comes right back to a person's feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don't know nothing about the blues, please believe me." -Jimmy Rushing
"But between sets I'd sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places." -Stevie Ray Vaughan
“The blues ain't nothing but a good man feelin' bad” -Leon Redbone
"There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money." -Muddy Waters
"I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory." -Muddy Waters
"You gotta have heart if you want to make it in this business." -Dexter Gordon
"The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues." -Luther Allison
