The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.
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.
I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.
Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.
Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin', too.
I tried to connect my singing voice to my guitar an' my guitar to my singing voice. Like the two was talking to one another.
Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die to get there!
Cotton was a force of nature. There's a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.
People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.
We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.
I don't like anybody to be angry with me. I'd rather have friends.
Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.
I'm trying to get people to see that we are our brother's keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.
The blues was bleeding the same blood as me.
I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.
Growing up, I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in, you gotta stand in the doorway.
Even now, at 82 years old, if I don't learn something every day, you know what I think? It's a day lost. Now, I don't practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I'm doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.
My wife Martha used to call me Ol' Lemon Face because of my facial contortions when I play Lucille. I squeeze my eyes and open my mouth, raise my eyebrows, cock my head and God knows what else. I look like I'm in torture, when in truth, I'm in ecstasy. I don't do it for show. Every fiber of my being is tingling.
I don't think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.
Whenever I'm in Kansas City, I think back to all the jazz-blues greats who played the blues here - like Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Jay McShann. I watched those guys jam in different places and heard a lot of things - but I couldn't do what they did. They were too good.
