Them pains, when blues pains grab you, you'll sing the blues right.

A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin', and that's the blues.

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

I used to listen to country and western and blues, John Lee Hooker, spirituals, the Bluegrass Boys, and Eddie Arnold. There was a radio station that come on everyday with country, spirituals, and the blues.

I picked all the tunes before I went to Memphis, and the band was all set. Willie Mitchell is an arranger like I am, and he let me do what I had to do.

Oh, I was working occasionally in and out of New York.