I've always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn't have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
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 would sing the blues if I had the blues.
We are trying to prove that the blues lives on forever and anybody in this place can sing the blues.
The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.
I didn't really grow up listening to blues, because I grew up in the Northwest. It wasn't really the center for blues.
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.
I base myself in African-derived music. Blues is one of the modern forms of African music.
I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.
The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.
The blues is played everywhere. There's no place I've been where they don't have blues or aren't interested in blues.