When I reflect on how things have changed, I can't help but laugh.

In 1940 I came across a record by Jimmy Yancey. I can't say how important that record is. From then on, all I wanted to do was play the blues.

The British feel of blues has been hard, rather than emotional. Far too much emphasis on 12 bar, too little attention to words, far too little originality.

I can't explain why one wants to pass a particular sort of pain onto other people, but you do.

I guess music, particularly the blues, is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.

I was considered as a jazz man rather than as a blues player. There were no blues players-you played one sort of jazz of another sort of jazz.