Blues Music Quotes - Page 2

• 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

  Fun, White, Black

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• 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

  Thinking, Soul, Way

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, music.avclub.com. December 12, 2007.

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• If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Reality

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• 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

  People, Facts, Lawyer

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• They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• 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

  Song, Pain, Struggle

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• If you don't live it, you don't believe it.

  Paul Harvey

  Believe, Don't Believe, Ifs

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• Once I was checking to hotel and a couple saw my ring with Blues on it. They said, 'You play blues. That music is so sad.' I gave them tickets to the show, and they came up afterwards and said, 'You didn't play one sad song.'

  Buddy Guy

  Song, Couple, Play

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• The jazz and blues clubs are like the jazz and blues musicians - they're disappearing.

  Buddy Guy

  Musician, Clubs, Jazz

  "Blues guitarist Buddy Guy". "Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. June 7, 2012.

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• I've always wanted the sound of Muddy Waters' early records - only louder

  Eric Clapton

  Music, Guitar, Water

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• 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

  Depressing, Player, Guitar

  Source: blankonblank.org

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• 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

  Spiritual, Powerful, Church Music

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• It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Music, May, Characteristics

  James Weldon Johnson “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man”, W. W. Norton & Company

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• 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

  Music, Years, People

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• He not busy being born is busy dying.

  Bob Dylan

  Life, Happy Birthday, Music

  "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" (song) (1965)

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• 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

  Music, Discovery, Perception

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• 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

  Pain, Thinking, Perspective

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• The musicians that didn't know music could play the best blues. I know that I don't want no musicians who know all about music playin' for me.

  Alberta Hunter

  Play, Musician, Want

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• Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It's the rhythm that gets to the kids – they're starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners.

  Alan Freed

  Music, Dance, Song

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• 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

  Song, Character, Singing

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• 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

  Play, No Money

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• Man, there's no boundary line to art!

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• You don't have to live the blues to play the blues.

  Herbie Mann

  Music, Play, Jazz

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• Blues music is becoming more and more popular than it ever was. I'm always meeting people on the road that are really young, and are guitar players.... male and female.

  Mick Taylor

  Player, Guitar, People

  "The Artist Shop IRC Chat with Mick Taylor". www.artist-shop.com. April 18, 1999.

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• Most blues don't have a beginning, middle, or end. You just cut a couple slices of blues.

  Dave Van Ronk

  Music, Couple, Cutting

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