Top 1200 Blues Music Quotes & Sayings - Page 12

You gotta pay your dues to sing the blues.

If you can't play the blues... you might as well hang it up.

I listen to a lot of alternative types of music: I listen to a lot of Chinese music, I listen to a lot of Asian music. It might surprise you, but I listen to a lot of Arabic music. And I don't care - music is music.

So yeah, I am definitely a blues man at heart.

Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music.

My creativeness stems from my love of music. Music is pure emotion. Music is the infinity sign. Music is self-expression in its purest form - it's how I express my anger, my self-doubt, my love. I think my music is very vulnerable and very expressive, very transparent.

Coming up in Chicago, we heard a lot of blues.

....the popular music of Jamaica, the music of the people, is an essentially experiential music, not merely in the sense that the people experience the music, but also in the sense that the music is true to the historical experience, that the music reflects the historical experience. It is the spiritual expression of the historical experience of the Afro-Jamaican.

Is this really Butte, Montana, or just existential blues?

If you can't play the Blues you might as well hang it up.

But what I like to sing mostly is blues and cabaret style.

I'm thrilled that country music fans like my stuff, but so do a lot of people outside of country music, people who just love music. My goal is more to reach music lovers than to appeal to a genre. I love country music, and I'm proud to represent it, but I don't obsess over it as a category.

Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.

I just hope I'm remembered as a good blues musician.

People that can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

Back then I was still listening to rhythm and blues, and my aunt took me to see a Pete Seeger concert. And it gelled. He made all the sense in the world to me. I got addicted to his albums, and then Belafonte and Odetta - they were the people who seemed to fuse things that were important to me into music. I think Pete the most because he did what he did to the point where he took those enormous risks and then paid for them.

The blues and gospel stuff seemed to go together.

I been studyin' the rain and I'm 'on drive my blues away.

I was singing the blues when I was six. Kind of sad, eh?

Music was around in my family in two ways. My mother would occasionally sing to me, but I was mostly stimulated by the classical music my father had left behind. I had an ear for music, I suppose, so that's what began my interest in music.

The blues ain't nothing but a good man feelin' bad.

Pure, white rock 'n' roll, with no blues influence.

I think there is a big difference between the music business and music. And my relationship is to music, not music business. I think the business will keep changing, but music won't. Music will be there.

If you look at the history of music, you have classical composers, church music, pop music, etc. Music that's existed for centuries. I think there are some songs that are close to immortal. They will last longer than we will in this lifetime.

The history of music is nothing more than the history of art-music or classical music, the music that was commissioned by aristocrats.

Indie music is 'it' now. It's kind of a revolution to the music: 1980s, 1990s music was getting very sanitized; they were complying with the music industry. Music was getting more and more dead in a way. Now, because of the social climate that's very severe, the artists are compelled to start being real. It's really great that indie music is now.

Blues has always been a huge part of my life.

I don't fake my music. If I want to be known for anything it's for creating honest music. Noting is fake or will ever be fake about the lyrics and pain in my music. My music I live it.

Back in the day in my teens I was listening to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery a lot; before that I was listening to what I would call now the more 'simple' jazz players (but still very valid), like Barney Kessell or Johnny Smith; I learnt a lot of voicings from Johnny Smith records. Now, I listen to the old blues players; that's what you'd hear in my house if there was music on. It would be Albert Collins or Albert King.

And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

People around me are always an inspiration due to their love of the music and they help me to generate ideas for music. But it's really the passion and drive I have for my music that keeps me connected. I recorded my first song in the studio at 8 years old and I've taken it seriously since then. Making music is fun to me so I aim to translate those feelings into the music.

You can sing the blues in church if you use the words right.

Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.

I play blues, sure, but don't call me a bluesman

By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz.

The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.

Elvis, he was unique. And he loved the blues, it was a pity he didn't do more.

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.

Warm evenings, pale mornings, bottle of blues

You have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the Blues.

It's good to see young kids getting into the blues.

There's always talk about the blues dying out, but it won't.

My blues are so simple, but so few people can play it right

Enjoy music. Not the kind that rocks and rolls, but the music of the masters, the music that has lived through the centuries, the music that has lifted people. If you do not have a taste for it, listen to it thoughtfully. If you do not like it the first time, listen to it again and keep listening.

I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.

All music is dance music. But when people think of dance music, they think of techno or just house. Anything you can dance to is dance music. I don't care if it's classical, funk, salsa, reggae, calypso; it's all dance music.

The blues is not a plaything like some people think they are.

There was a great blues scene in Belfast during the late '60s.

Tina Turner gave me the highway blues.

Rock and roll came in and changed my life and changed the whole music scene forever, and then I grew to love R&B and Motown and all black music, gospel music. But I never dismiss any form of music. I listen to everything.

Put on your red shoes, and dance the blues.

After I exhausted the blues thing, I got into jazz.

In my moments of down time I tend to listen to Blues.

Ain't but one kind of blues and that consists of a male and female that's in love.

The blues are three L's - living , loving and hopefully, laughing.

I love blues, mellow rock 'n' roll.

Obviously, with me being a DJ, I have a love for music. One day I was like, 'OK. I'm tired of playing everybody else's music. I rather play my music.' So, that's kind of how the whole me doing music thing started.

Who's to say a blues man can't play rock and roll?

If it ain't about what's real, what's happenin' right now, it ain't the blues.

My template for most songs is 'Is this inspiring?' and with the blues it so often is.