A Quote by Paul Butterfield
A lot of people relate me to the blues but I don't think it's a hindrance at this point. I've been doing it long enough that I can do different things and be accepted.
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If I was concerned about being accepted, I would have been doing Ansel Adams lookalikes, because that was easily accepted. Everything I did was never accepted...but luckily for me, my interest in the subject and my passion for the subject took me to the point that I wasn't wounded by that, and eventually, people came around to me.
You've heard me call myself a bluesman and a blues singer. I call myself a blues singer, but you ain't never heard me call myself a blues guitar man. Well, that's because there's been so many can do it better'n I can, play the blues better'n me. I think a lot of them have told me things, taught me things.
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.
I have a lot of analog. I think a lot of people do. There are a lot of people that are re-discovering it. I still have a lot of my old records from back in the day. It's a joy to play things like Junior Wells' 'Hoodoo Man Blues,' and John Mayall & The Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. There's a warmth that you can still feel.
I just I love telling stories and as long as I can make my living doing that in all the different mediums that I have been lucky enough to, that's enough for me.
Of course, when you're doing something that's unexpected, people are going to have a very specific point of view about it, but I think it's all good to have a healthy debate about who Hitchcock was and what that means to people. He means a lot of different things to a lot of different people because the films are so great. If the movies were not great, no one would be bothering to show any interest.
I am old enough and wise enough and I have been around long enough to know that things will be said - and not nice things a lot of the time. And when you are doing well, nice things will be said.
The thing is that I'm naturally curious about a lot of different disciplines in music, and I enjoy doing them. And as long as people are nice enough to let me, I'll keep on trying.
There's been a vacuum with movies that people can relate to. There's been a paucity of dramas that people can relate to. I think audiences are clamoring to connect - particularly after 9/11 - with things that are genuine and real and I think documentaries are filling that need.
I tend to be known for different things. I mean, there are a lot of comics or sci-fi fans out there who sort of think of me doing that kind of work, but there are just as many people who like the CD covers I've done, or the children's books I've done. So different people like different things.
The world isn't perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn't apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway. Sometimes it's about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn't perfection. The point is doing it anyway.
At a certain age you start becoming brave enough to reveal yourself and it's the revealing of who you are that enables you to dig deeper into different characters. You'll get to a point where you can say: 'I can relate to that', 'I know that', 'I don't have to make that up' and that resonates with people in the audience who can tell that you've been there.
We understand what the difference is between what we understand and what the community understands about what we're doing because they have supported us long enough for me to stay out here, while other people who are doing other things have not. A lot of people have trouble pinning down what it is we do and how. But we don't have any trouble with that. As long as that's their problem, it's their problem.
I've gone the full spectrum - from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop - and the public has accepted what I've done through it all. I think it means I've been doing something right at the right time.
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.
Nowadays blues in particular has a wide, wide, wide, wide net of everything that's called blues. I think if somebody's coming to it in the last ten years or whatever, or even fifteen years, what their experience is what is called blues is different from mine. I have to expand my range of what's been called the blues. I think somebody who's new to it would have to go back and to see what is called blues now, where it came from. If that makes sense.
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