The delta blues is a low-down, dirty shame blues. It's a sad, big wide sound, something to make you think about people who are dead or the women who left you.

You play a 'lowdown dirty shame slow and lonesome, my mama dead, my papa across the sea I ain't dead but I'm just supposed to be' blues. You can take that same blues, make it uptempo, a shuffle blues, that's what rock n' roll did with it. So blues ain't going nowhere. Ain't goin' nowhere.

I seen a lot of changes. You got to make changes. I even make changes in my blues.

All pictures are unnatural. All pictures are sad because they're about dead people. Paintings you don't think of in a special time or with a specific event. With photos I always think I'm looking at something dead.

The blues and jazz will live forever... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

You could play the blues like it was a lonesome thing - it was a feeling.