I'm trying to get people to see that we are our brother's keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie [Ray Vaughan] missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

Water from the white fountain didn't taste any better than from the black fountain.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me.

People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.