Top 1200 Chicago Blues Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning.

Black people have always loved the blues - they basically created the blues.

I want to go back to the format that radio started with rock n' roll, with country artists and rhythm and blues with that oldies type feeling. I want to put it all together and create a Top 40 of rhythm and blues and country and straight blues with Wolfman at the reins.

I'm also a blues musician, and all blues artists can trace their pain to the slavery fields of the Mississippi Delta.

Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.

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.

I'm not committed to putting myself up for a blues guitarist, even though I love playing the blues.

I love Chicago - absolutely love Chicago. I mean, I'd much rather go to Chicago and do a play or a musical than New York, honestly. Because just probably for reasons that are obvious to you. It's just a little bit - it's a nicer, easier city.

You literally cannot deny the fact that rock and roll was born because of blues, and blues is black man's music.

When I went to Memphis and Mississippi and Nashville, I learnt the blues is a whole way of life. I don't really have the blues, but I can appreciate the honesty and the simplicity of it.

I can sing the blues and I have sung the blues. I feel it internally when I'm singing.

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.

We've got a lot of love from Chicago, you know we've been selling out big venues in Chicago that other people don't sell out. Our music is something that's a bit different you know from what's being publicized and that's going against everything else coming out in Chicago.

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.

There was a time when I had the blues - I mean I really had it bad. I couldn't pay my light bill and I couldn't pay my rent and I really had the blues. But today I can pay my rent and I can pay the light bill and I still got the blues. So I must been born with 'em... That's my religion - the blues is my religion.

We are trying to prove that the blues lives on forever and anybody in this place can sing the blues.

The blues was so big in the late '60s that it kinda wore itself out, and people weren't diggin' the blues as much.

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.

Rock 'n' roll guitar came from blues guitar. It was the blues guys who first turned the amp up and started whacking on the Stratocaster and a Les Paul. It wasn't the country guys and it wasn't the white guys; it was the Blues guys. That's where the real fire is in all of this rock and roll music.

I actually started working in Chicago while I was still a student; I did the Chicago premiere of 'The History Boys' at the end of my junior year. I had come to Chicago for Northwestern University. I didn't quite know about the theater community, and what I did know was mostly the improv.

There were times I thought I was going to turn to the blues, but then I'd hear better blues players.

I was asked to come to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states.

Chicago still remains a Mecca of the Midwest - people from both coasts are kind of amazed how good life is in Chicago and what a good culture we've got. You can have a pretty wonderful artistic life and never leave Chicago.

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.

Chicago still remains a Mecca of the Midwest - people from both coasts are kind of amazed how good life is in Chicago, and what a good culture we've got. You can have a pretty wonderful artistic life and never leave Chicago.

When I came to The Moody Blues, we were a rhythm and blues band. I was lousy at rhythm and blues - I think the rest of us were.

Everything comes out in blues music: joy , pain , struggle . Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance.

Nobody can tell you how the blues feel unless they have the blues. We all take it differently.

People should hear the pure blues - the #? blues we used to have when we had no money.

Chicago is my home. And the way Chicago sounds will always be a part of who I am.

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

We're blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word.

From the first album, we've had songs like 'The Jack' that are blues based. We also did it in 'Ride On,' where we went into the blues.

I am Chicago. I'm from Chicago. I bleed Chicago. I really think I can help the city. I think I can save the city.

Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.

I listen to a lot of Chicago blues, I suppose. It reminds me of growing up, I guess. But I'm also obsessed by close-harmony groups. Actually, I'm fascinated particularly by brother duos, how they blend together. The Everly Brothers, the Stanley Brothers, The McQuarrys. There's something inherently magical about harmony.

I had the one thing you need to be a blues singer, I was born with the blues.

All you need is the blues. To me, the blues is the book, it's the bible, it's everything.

Do I love the road? Honestly? No - but it's how I earn my living. I also don't have the blues, like it's some kind of fever. The blues is my job. It's what I do.

It's never hard to sing the blues. Everyone in the world has the blues . . .

Recording in Nashville was absolutely essential to get the sound, the musicians, the atmosphere, the warmth... There are just cult places like that in the world, like Chicago for the blues or New York for jazz. Nothing sounds the same in Nashville as it does elsewhere. Nashville is the Mecca of country music and everyone knows it.

It really wasn't about picking Chicago. I feel like Chicago picked me.

Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist.

The Great Migration changed American history not just for the migrants but for all of us. It made possible American cultural milestones like the Harlem Renaissance, Chicago blues, and Motown, just to name a few.

To me, the blues is an infection. I don't think it's necessarily a melancholy thing; the blues can be really positive and I think I think anyone and everyone can have a place for the blues. It need not always a woeful, sorrowful thing. It's more reflective; it reminds you to feel.

See, I have a different type of music from other peoples. They playing the other kind of blues, and I'm playing cotton-patch blues.... Ain't nobody now can play the blues that I play.

The Moody Blues was very big in France, because they liked that we were basically playing blues.

I was part of that whole early Moody Blues transitioning from a sort of R&B-blues band to being more progressive.

I'm not a super blues player, but I was exposed to the Texas blues sound while I was growing up, and that definitely rubbed off on me.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don't worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made 'Three O' Clock Blues,' they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I'm trying to satisfy.

I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues.

See, that's nothing but blues, that's all I'm singing about. It's today's blues.

It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Blues is what I love, and blues is what I always do.

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

Oh, I listened to a lot of the blues. I love the blues. You know, Slim Harpo, people like that, and Sonny Boy Williamson.

Music and the blues, they have taught me a lot. I think in this book, 'Book Of Hours,' there is this blues sensibility. There are moments of humor even in the sorrow, and I'm really interested in the way that the blues have that tragic-comic view of life - what Langston Hughes called 'laughing to keep from crying.'

The blues? Why, the blues are a part of me. They're like a chant. The blues are like spirituals, almost sacred. When we sing blues, we're singing out our hearts, we're singing out our feelings. Maybe we're hurt and just can't answer back, then we sing or maybe even hum the blues. When I sing, 'I walk the floor, wring my hands and cry -- Yes, I walk the floor, wring my hands and cry,'... what I'm doing is letting my soul out.

Blues is like the roux in a gumbo. People ask me if jazz always has the blues in it. I say, if it sounds good it does.

The blues will always be because the blues are the roots of all American music.

I love Chicago. I know Chicago. And Chicago is a great city. It can be a great city. It can't be a great city if people are shot walking down the street for a loaf of bread.