A Quote by Howlin' Wolf

A lot of people wonder, what is the blues? Well, I'm gonna tell you what the blues is.

Howlin' Wolf

Quote Topics

Blues Gonna Lot People Tell Well Wonder

Quote Author

Howlin' Wolf
American - Musician
June 10, 1910 - January 10, 1976

There are happy blues, sad blues, lonesome blues, red-hot blues, mad blues, and loving blues. Blues is a testimony to the fullness of life.

Corey Harris

I have heartaches, I have blues. No matter what you got, the blues is there. 'Cause that's all I know - the blues. And I can sing the blues so deep until you can have this room full of money and I can give you the blues.

John Lee Hooker

I don't remember any impression [from blues].The blues was just everywhere in the Mississippi Delta. It was mostly black sharecroppers living there, and there was a lot of blues around. Sometimes the guys would sing the blues in the fields, working.

Mose Allison

A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

Etta James

A lot of what I listened to growing up was blues, but also folk and indie music. So there's this marriage of songs that structurally are quite bluesy. Sound-wise, there's a lot of indie as well. But you can't really say I'm pop-blues, because that's insulting to blues. It just can't exist.

George Ezra

I know that for category purposes, people have to lump certain artists in with genre that they make their name or their bones in. Nobody can tell me that Taj Mahal is pure blues. Nobody can tell me that Mike Bloomfield was pure blues. It was a lot of other things going on as well.

Joe Louis Walker

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

Theres no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, Im 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

People think the blues is sad. They hear people moaning and such. That's not the blues. That's just somebody singing slow...The blues is about truth-telling.

Alberta Hunter

There's a lot of women in blues music, lots of strong women and that sort of stuff. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about blues. There were a lot of powerful blues guitar players in the olden times that were women. It's just that when you think about blues, you have this one image in your mind.

Mirel Wagner

The blues scale was the first thing I learned. It's just a pentatonic scale with a flat seventh and a few notes that sound cool when you bend them. And because people have amalgamated the blues into this rock-blues scale, if you're using it, you better sound like a real authentic blues player.

Steve Vai

I'm an old soul. The blues, especially older blues, is the human element that kind of gives the music soul, and I think that maybe not enough people connect to the blues. It's a very powerful place to be; and if you can express that to an audience, I think that you can express a lot through that.

Bria Skonberg

Well I'm a-gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler About workin' all summer just to try an' earn a dollar Everytime I call my baby, to try to get a date My boss says, no dice, son, you gotta work late Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do 'cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues.