Blues singers

"They call me "Snorah", but Jesus, that slow music touches people!"

"I realize my strengths. The truth is, I sing ballads. People like it when I sing ballads. I seem to have a way with them. And if the cool kids can’t say anything nice about me, that’s how it is."

"I’m too sensitive. All I have to do is pick up Newsweek and glance upon a bad review and it will crush me for a week. Some Joe Schmo writes a snarky comment in a blog and I’m destroyed."

"I’m like, "Oh, I make slow music." I guess that’s okay. Maybe it's a good thing to sound like yourself."

"Something has to make you run I don't know why I didn't come"

"Lonestar Where are you out tonight? This feeling I'm trying to fight It's dark and I think that I would give anything For you to shine down on me"

"How far you are I just don't know The distance I'm willing to go I pick up a stone that I cast to the sky Hoping for some kind of sign"

"If I were a painter I would paint my reverie If that's the only way for you to be with me"

"I want to walk with you On a cloudy day In fields where the yellow grass grows knee high"

"I want to wake up with the rain Falling on a tin roof While I'm safe there in your arms So all I ask is for you To come away with me in the night Come away with me"

"It never rains when you want it to You humble me, Lord"

"I can't hold on very long Forgive me, pretty baby, but I always take the long way home"

"I love the things that you've given meI cherish you my dear countryBut sometimes I don't understand the way we play"

"What the fuck is going on? Who the fuck is Norah Jones? "Shady, wait a minute, baby, leave the whore alone. Just go up there and be humble and take them awards home.""

"Every year we went, I would be up for "Album of the Year" and then the winner is Norah Jones? Who? And I'm not even trying to say anything bad about her music. At that point, I had never heard of her and none of my friends did either and then Steely Dan. Okay, I know who Steely Dan is. Steely Dan back in the day. More than The Marshall Mathers LP impact? Okay, fine. I watched 50. 50 did not win Best New Artist at the Grammys. Nobody since Snoop came out the gate like that. My first album didn't do it. I never saw someone's first album and the wave happen like he had. And then he doesn't get it."

"I got a Jones like Norah for your soror."

"Sorry for the tune up between time, but what the hell, cowboys are the only ones who stay in tune, anyway..."

"Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel."

"I’m sorry, am I mumbling? Tell me when I’m mumbling. Damn … I always mumble."

"I don’t want to be a clown anymore. I don’t want to be a ‘rock and roll star.'"

"Start with a shovel, wind up with a spoon."

"I try to get up every day."

"Definitely, and it's getting more spiritual. Pretty soon I believe people will have to rely on music to get some kind of peace of mind, or satisfaction, or direction, actually. More so than politics, the big ego scene. You know it's an art of words... Meaning nothing. Therefore you will have to get an earthier substance, like music or the arts."

"We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds... 'Cause there are so many sleeping people."

"I don't really live on compliments. As a matter of fact, they have a way of distracting me. I know a whole lot of musicians, artists out there who hears the compliments and thinks "wow, I must have been really great" and so they get fat and satisfied and they get lost and forget about their actual talent and start living in another world."

"I got a bad, bad feeling my baby don't live here no more... But that's alright i still got my guitar."

"Waterfall, nothing can harm me at all My worries seem so very small With my waterfall."

"Listen here, baby And stop acting so crazy You say your mum ain't home, it ain't my concern, Just play with me and you won't get burned. I have only one itching desire: Let me stand next to your fire."

"We’ll hold hands and then we’ll watch the sunrise From the bottom of the sea But first, are you experienced? Uh-have you ever been experienced? Well, I have"

"Have you ever been experienced? Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful."

"Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Hey Joe, I said where you goin' with that gun in your hand? Alright. I'm goin down to shoot my old lady, You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man. Yeah,! I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady, You know I caught her messin' 'round with another man. Huh! And that ain't too cool."

"Purple haze, all in my brain Lately things just don't seem the same, Acting funny, but I don't know why, 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky."

"You got me blowin, blowin my mind, Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?"

"The traffic lights, they turn a blue tomorrow And shine their emptiness down on my bed The tiny island sags on downstream Cause the life it lived, is, is dead"

"Well she's walking through the clouds With a circus mind, that's running round. Butterflies and Zebras, and moonbeams, and fairytales- That's all she ever thinks about. Riding with the wind."

"White collar conservative flashin' down the street, Pointing that plastic finger at me, Hoping soon my kind will drop and die, But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high."

"I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to."

"Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually"

"Anger he smiles towering in shiney metallic purple armour, Queen jealousy envy waits behind him, Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground."

"You're just like crosstown traffic So hard to get through to you. Crosstown traffic. I don't need to run over you. Crosstown traffic. All you do is slow me down. And I'm tryin' to get on the other side of town."

"I'm a Voodoo Child, Voodoo Child, Lord knows I am a Voodoo Child"

"I used to live in a room full of mirrors, All I could see was me. Then I take my spirit and I smash my mirrors, And now the whole world is here for me to see, Now I'm searching for my love to be."

"When the power of love overcomes love of power the world will know peace."

"There's so many tight-lipped ideas and laws around, and people put themselves in uniforms so tightly, that it's almost impossible to break out of that. Subconsciously, what these people are doing, they're killin' off all these little flashes they have, cutting off the idea of wanting to understand. They forgot, didn't believe, or just snuffed the feelings or thoughts off to continue with their crazy soul. They don't have the patience to really check out what's happenin' through music, theater and science. It’s like a spaceship. If a spaceship came down and you know nothin’ about it, the first thing you’re going to think about is shooting it. In other words, you get negative in the first place, which is not really the natural way of thinking. It’s like shooting at a flying saucer as it tries to land without giving the occupants a chance to identify themselves."

"Individual is unable to conform to military rules and regulations. Misses bed check: sleeps while supposed to be working: unsatisfactory duty performance."

"You never told me he was that fucking good."

"I want him to be remembered for what he was – not this tragic figure he has been turned into by nit-pickers and people who used to stalk us and collect photographs and 'evidence' of what we were doing on a certain day. He could be grumpy, and he could be terrible in the studio, getting exactly what he wanted – but he was fun, he was charming. I want people to remember the man I knew."

"I said, "You’re Jimi Hendrix, and anything you do is taken as gospel because of who you are. In the first show, you humped the guitar, you played it with your teeth, you stuck it behind your back. You just forgot to play.”"

"We started from the premise that music was a mission, not a competition … That the basis was the blues, but that the framework of the blues was too tight. We'd talk first about what he wanted the emotion of the song to be. What's the vision? He would talk in colours and my job was to give him the electronic palette which would engineer those colours so he could paint the canvas."

"When you listen to Hendrix, you are listening to music in its pure form … The electronics we used were 'feed forward', which means that the input from the player projects forward – the equivalent of electronic shadow dancing – so that what happens derives from the original sound and modifies what is being played. But nothing can be predictive – it is speed-forward analogue, a non-repetitive wave form, and that is the definition of pure music and therefore the diametric opposite of digital. Look, if you throw a pebble into a lake, you have no way of predicting the ripples – it depends on how you throw the stone, or the wind. Digital makes the false presumption that you can predict those ripples, but Jimi and I were always looking for the warning signs. The brain knows when it hears repetition that this is no longer music and what you hear when you listen to Hendrix is pure music. It took discussion and experiment, and some frustrations, but then that moment would come, we'd put the headphones down and say, "Got it. That's the one.""

"Jimi Hendrix is very important. He's my idol. He sort of epitomizes, from his presentation on stage, the whole works of a rock star. There's no way you can compare him. You either have the magic or you don't. There's no way you can work up to it. There's nobody who can take his place."

"I dreamed about Jimi Hendrix he came back for one day was born weepin' out of an egg the mid-wife said and straight away began to pray with lifted head"

"He was young and black and beautiful big eyed, perfect skin an' he played my guitar like a lightning storm like twirlin' feathers in the wind he could make it sound like the end of the world a fire, the flick of a knife he could squeeze it slow and masterful like the hand that brought the world to life"

"He made all Manhattan shake and every street and sidewalk quake his stratocaster caused the mighty Empire State to vibrate"

"He did a forty-two minute cosmic rise in future shocks Star Spangled Banner in the back of CBGB's He stopped every clock in New York state and every heart that heard him and time itself was beaten and confused and fell lamb-like under the spell of his fabulous flashing fingers He played an encore at the Bitter End a heartburst Little Wing even the waiters cried and then we fell outside and in the dusty dawn of Bleeker street a sweet rain fell and Jimi died."

"I recorded "…Moon" on my own with a drum machine, then brought musicians in as they were needed. It's about a person who has a spectacular, meteor-like rise, but burns out or dies young. Though the song ain't about him, the nearest equivalent would be Hendrix."

"Hendrix had conjured – with his vision and sense of sound, his personality and genius – the most extraordinary guitar music ever played, the most remarkable sound-scape ever created; of that there is little argument. Opinion varies only over the effect his music has on people: elation, fear, sexual stimulation, sublimation, disgust – all or none of these – but always drop-jawed amazement."

"I remember Cliff talking about how his roommate at Berkeley, a Jewish brother from the Bronx, had introduced him to a far-out guitar player named Jimi Hendrix. "He'll blow your mind, Corn" said Cliff. And he did."

"Through the 80s, yuppie nostalgia for the halcyon '60s obscured Hendrix's contributions [...] at least in the minds of post-Baby Boomers. Today, record store bins are filled with dozens of pieces of Hendrix product, despite the fact that he sanctioned the release of only three studio albums and one live disc in his lifetime. It's difficult if not impossible for new listeners to access his legacy when the meaningless notion that he was "the greatest electric guitarist who ever lived' is carved in granite on the base of his statue in the rock pantheon."

"No. I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit."

"It is the pursuit of happiness that brings us happiness, and not the happiness achieved."

"It seemed like there was no control over it. I think certain things just popped. God was blessing us in telling us that certain things were going the way they were supposed to go."

"I'm always surprised when anything about the band connects. But I love the fact that it's hard for people to understand. We've said before that it's always been a great thing to get certain people to go away thinking, 'Oh dear, she can't play the drums!' 'Fine, if you think it's all a gimmick, go away!' It weeds out people who wouldn't care anyway."

"Frank Sinatra was dignified. We don't have a Frank Sinatra, or a Patti Page nowadays. What do we have? Ashlee Simpson instead of Patti Page! I mean, look at those people - like Paris Hilton! Who are all these skanks, man? Little girls are looking up to these girls, and it's so gross. Those girls have no dignity at all, and parents are letting their kids dress up like those skanks. But what else have they got? What are the other choices? Somebody had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to play guitar on Lindsay Lohan's album! She's another one of those 16-year-old actresses, and she's making an album! Like, 'NO!' Ha ha ha!"

"I feel it, you felt it—we're all struggling with the trouble that this industry is in right now. And it's not about sales; it's about beauty and romance and a relationship to art that's turning invisible, and it's affecting people's perception of music. It's affecting whether they think of it as a viable art, because it's so fucking disposable. It's not about being modern or retro or a Luddite or being hopeful or pessimistic about the future; it's about clinging on to what makes sense of our lives, and what give our lives value, and what gives us a commonality and a feeling of belonging."

"I love him (Josh Homme) too much, and you can't hurt someone that you love that much ... unless you're family."

"I have three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan."

"Every time there's a list of the 100 greatest records of all time, all those albums were recorded in two days. Hardly any of them took a year, I'll tell you. In this day and age, I think it's important that people know that."

"At times, we [the White Stripes] almost ignore our own music. If we have the stage, we've gotta play Son House's music, because there's nobody to keep it alive. We don't wanna be known as the band that's conducting music instruction class. But that's all everyone talks about - why MTV's not good, why radio's not good. And the answer is really because whatever you want to call it - blues, country, folk - isn't around any more. That's why everyone's so mad, and I'm tired of it being my job to bring it back."

"'I'm excited by the band [White Stripes]. It really excites me. But it wouldn't excite me if there weren't those limitations, if we weren't living in that box, if we weren't trapped. Once that goes away, then I'll know that it's not worth doing it any more.'"

"Is this some kind of fucking radio promotion? What the fuck is this? Let me just say that if whatever said radio station tries to blacklist us for my comments about their balloons, I would like them to know I want a written apology tomorrow for interrupting my song."

"You can't do better than that."

"Well that's a polite thing to say but that's fucking ridiculous."

"I tend to be that guy, you know? When me and four friends walk into a restaurant and nobody else talks to the host, I say, “Yeah, it’s a table for five.” I don’t want to be that guy; I wish someone else would say something. But it always ends up being me, and I hate what comes with that. There’s a lot of baggage—ego and narcissism—that comes with leadership. It’s difficult to cope with at times."

"It'll sometimes hit me in the middle of a song, like, who do I think I am standing up here...playing."

"I saw a review of our new album, and it said, "Every single component of the White Stripes is a gigantic lie." What does that mean? Have I sat down and said I was born in Mississippi? No. Did I say I grew up on a plantation and learned how to play guitar from a blind man? I never said anything like that. It's funny that people think me and Meg sit up late at night, in front of a gas lamp, and come up with these intricate lies to trick people."

"I'm not saying I came up with anything [laughs]. It's like people thinking we would be more real if we went onstage in jeans and T-shirts. How ignorant is that, to think that because they don't wear a suit onstage that someone is giving you the real deal? People do come and see us and think, "Look at all these gimmicks." Go ahead, man. Go ahead and think that."

"I see him becoming one of the greatest record producers there is."

"Jack is the showman—the brassy frontman and the snake-oil trader."

"I would love to be Jack White — or maybe I want the peo­ple who like Jack White to also like me. But I”m the guy who writes beau­ti­ful music at 85 beat per minute."

"I wasn’t prepared. He had a big Mercedes, with a custom sound system, and he drove like hell through Nashville traffic, with Slim Harpo at defcon 1 volume."

"Music’s for grooving man, and music’s not for puttin’ yourself through bad changes, y’know? I mean, you don’t have to go take anybody’s shit, man, just to like music, y’know what I mean? You don’t. So... so if you’re getting’ more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it man. Y’know, it’s just music. Music’s... music's s’posed to be different than that."

"To sing blues, you've got to be able to, ... be willing to, feel things."

"Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week. In MY week."

"Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking day, man."

"Time keeps movin' on, Friends they turn away. I keep movin' on But I never found out why I keep pushing so hard the dream, I keep tryin to make it right Through another lonely day, whoaa."

"Dawn has come at last, Twenty-five years, honey just in one night, oh yeah. Well, Im twenty-five years older now So I know we can't be right And Im no better, baby, And I cant help you no more Than I did when just a girl."

"Aww, but it don't make no difference, baby, no, no, And I know that I could always try. It don't make no difference, baby, yeah, I better hold it now, I better need it, yeah, Im gonna use it till the day I die, whoa."

"Don't expect any answers, dear, For I know that they don't come with age, no, no. Well, ain't never gonna love you any better, babe. And I'm never gonna love you right, So you'd better take it now, and right now."

"Oh! But it don't make no difference, babe, hey, And I know that I could always try. Theres a fire inside everyone of us, You'd better need it now, I got to hold it, yeah, I better use it till the day I die."

"Honey, I love to go to parties, And I like to have a good time, But if it gets too pale after a while Honey and I start looking to find One good man."

"One good man, Oh ain’t much, honey ain’t much, It’s only everything..."

"An’ I don’t want much outa life, I never wanted a mansion in the south. I just-a want to find someone sincere Who’d treat me like he talks, One good man."

"You say that it's over baby, Lord, You say that it's over now, But still you hang around me, come on, Won't you move over."

"You know that I need a man, honey Lord, You know that I need a man, But when I ask you to you just tell me That maybe you can."

"Please don'tcha do it to me babe, no! Please don'tcha do it to me baby, Either take this love I offer Or honey let me be."

"Oh yeah, make up your mind, honey, You're playing with me, hey hey hey, Make up your mind, darling, You're playing with me, come on now! Now either be my loving man, I said-a let me honey, let me be, yeah!"

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends"

"Well, I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough. I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!"

"You know you got it if it makes you feel good."

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free... And feeling good was easy, lord, when he sang the blues. You know feeling good was good enough for me, Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee."

"Work me Lord, work me Lord. Please don't you leave me, I feel so useless down here With no one to love Though I've looked everywhere And I can't find me anybody to love, To feel my care."

"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were talking so brave and so sweet Giving me head on an unmade bed While the limousines wait in the street. And those were the reasons and that was New York. I was running for the money and the flesh. I was running for the money and the flesh That was called love, for the workers in song And it still is for those of us left."

"Ah, but you got away, didn't you baby You just threw it all to the ground You got away, they can’t pay you now For making your sweet little sound, can they? Making your sweet little sound on the jukebox Making your sweet little sound on the jukebox Making your sweet little sound on the radio Making your sweet little sound."

"Ah but you got away, didn't you babe You just turned your back on the crowd You got away, I never once heard you say I need you, I don't need you I need you, I don't need you And all of that jiving around."

"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel You were famous, your heart was a legend You told me again you preferred handsome men But for me you'd make an exception. And clenching your fist for the ones like us Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, We are ugly but we have the music.""

"Wow, that's heavy."

"Singer Janis Joplin, who in 1968 was screeching out her voice with a California group called , said that she was not a hippie, because hippies believed in trying to make the world better. Instead she said she was a : "Beatniks believe things aren't going to get better and say, 'The hell with it,' stay stoned, and have a good time.""

"Janis knew more than I did about "how it was", but she lacked enough armor for the inevitable hassles. She was open and spontaneous enough to get her heart trampled with a regularity that took me thirty years to experience or understand. On the various occasions when we were together, she seemed to be holding in something she thought I might not want to hear, like older people do when they hear kids they love saying with absolute youthful confidence, "Oh, that'll never happen to me." Sometimes you know you can't tell them how it is, they have to find out for themselves. Janis felt like an old soul, a wisecracking grandmother whom everybody loved to visit. When I was with her, I often felt like a part of her distant family, a young upstart relative who was still too full of her own sophistry to hear wisdom. Did we compliment each other? Yes, but not often enough."

"A banker's daughter or a runaway girl, A little lady or a honky-tonk Pearl Has to find someplace in this world Where she feels at home. A banker's daughter is so hard to deceive A little lady is so hard to please Honky-tonk Pearl wears her heart on her sleeve, And her heart will not grow cold."

"Here's a wish for a runaway girl; Here's a prayer for honky-tonk Pearl — Hope she finds someplace outta this world Where she feels at home."

""Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" is as good an epitaph for the counterculture as any; we'll never know how-or if-Janis meant to go on from there. Janis Joplin's death, like that of a fighter in the ring, was not exactly an accident. Yet it's too easy to label it either suicide or murder, though it involved elements of both. Call it rather an inherent risk of the game she was playing, a game whose often frivolous rules both hid and revealed a deadly serious struggle. The form that struggle took was incomplete, shortsighted, egotistical, self-destructive. But survivors who give in to the temptation to feel superior to all that are in the end no better than those who romanticize it. Janis was not so much a victim as a casualty. The difference matters."

"You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things."

"You know, [Jojo] right now, the most important thing in my life is to make sure you understand that, first of all, I thank God I’m alive today, and I mean that. You see, I spent too many years of my life thinking that the big party was the whole thing. It took me quite a while to find out that the real deal is to be able to be enough of a person on your own to know when somebody loves and cares about you. You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other — our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That’s to help each other, not hurt each other. Sometimes, to help them, we've got to help ourselves, so that we’ll know that they’re around in the first place. You see, it’s a big world out there with enough pain and misery in it, without me going around and helping it out by hurting myself, and consequently, those that care about me. What I’m trying to get across to you is: Please take care of yourself and those that you love, because that’s what we are here for, that’s all we’ve got, and that is what we can take with us."

"I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn't death."

"I am stranded, caught in the crossfire."

"Walkin' the Tightrope, steppin' on my friends Walkin' the tight rope, it was a shame and a sin. Walkin the tight rope between wrong and right. Walkin the tight-rope both day and night."

"Up and down that road in our worn out shoes. Talkin' 'bout good things and singin' the blues. You went your way and I stayed behind. We both knew it was just a matter of time. You're liv-in out dreams of you on top. My mind is achin' and, Lord it won't stop. That's how it happened livin' life by the drop."

"You got me flippin' like a flag on a pole."

"Yeah I love my baby, heart and soul Love like ours won't never grow old She's my sweet little thang, she's my pride and joy She's my sweet little baby, I'm her little lover boy"

"Stevie Ray Vaughan did to music what Michael Jordan did for basketball. Stevie brought blues alive at a crucial moment, as far as I'm concerned."

"I don't think Stevie ever knew how incredible he really was."

"I was driving, and "Let's Dance" came on the radio. I stopped my car and said, 'I have to know who this guitar player is today. Not tomorrow, but today.' That has only happened to me three or four times ever, and probably not for anyone in between Duane Allman and Stevie."

"The first time I heard Stevie Ray Vaughan was seeing "Let's Dance" on MTV, and I was jumping out of my seat screaming, "Who the hell is playing guitar?"

"Stevie Ray Vaughan played blues like a man possessed. The perfect combination of chops, taste, conviction, tone and showmanship, Vaughan and his ’59 Fender Stratocaster exposed a whole new generation of listeners to the blues and, in turn, Stevie’s own influences: Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy."

"Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity."

"Where I feel this has cost me is in the personality situation, where you're expected to be a personality. You not only have to write and record, but you have to go out and sell it. Well, I'm not a salesman, and I'm very bad at selling things. If I had to do that for a living, I'd probably be completely broke. I can't sell myself. And I don't even want to. That's something that's not going to change."

"Someone once described me as a maverick and that's what I would say. I'm a maverick not by choice but by conviction."

"Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time."

"Music is spiritual. The music business is not."

"With Moondance, I wrote the melody first. I played the melody on a soprano sax and I knew I had a song so I wrote lyrics to go with the melody. That's the way I wrote that one. I don't really have any words to particularly describe the song, sophisticated is probably the word I'm looking for. For me, Moondance is a sophisticated song. Frank Sinatra wouldn't be out of place singing that."

"Into the Music was about the first album where I felt, 'I'm starting here'...the Wavelength thing, I didn't really feel that was me."

"The odd time something happens and you go into some kind of enchantment (on stage). But you have to work very hard to get that. Most of the time you're just playing and singing the songs, and there's no guarantee that you are going to get anywhere...."

"When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration"

"When I was fifteen, I became a professional musician. I got involved with people and did certain things which led me to start making records and touring. And leaving Belfast and going to London and America, one thing led to another and I got caught up in the life that I'm living now...I was very young and i followed something. (1993)"

"There is one thing I don't understand about Astral Weeks. Of all the records I have ever made that one is definitely not rock. You could throw that record at the wall, take it to music colleges, analyze it to death. Nobody is going to tell me that it is a rock album. Why they keep calling it one I have no idea."

"People think I'm eccentric, cranky. If I'm eccentric because I've never been into mainstream things, then I am eccentric."

"I've never been comfortable working live, and I'm still not. I was always more music-oriented and less star-oriented, which is why I've never been comfortable on big stages in big halls."

"The people I was listening to never sold a lot of records. John Lee Hooker was never on the charts, so I was never in it from a commercial point of view. Other people expected things from my records, but I never did."

"I don't think I will ever mellow out. I think if you mellow out, you get eaten up. You become like a commodity. So I don't think I will mellow out. It is not in my blood."

"Hey where did we go, Days when the rains came Down in the hollow, Playin' a new game, Laughing and a running hey, hey Skipping and a jumping In the misty morning fog with Our hearts a thumpin' and you My brown eyed girl, You my brown eyed girl."

"So hard to find my way, Now that I'm all on my own. I saw you just the other day, My how you have grown, Cast my memory back there, Lord Sometimes I'm overcome thinking 'bout Making love in the green grass Behind the stadium with you My brown eyed girl You my brown eyed girl."

"If I ventured in the slipstream, Between the viaducts of your dream, Where immobile steel rims crack, And the ditch in the back roads stop, Could you find me? Would you kiss my eyes? To lay me down, In silence easy, To be born again. To be born again."

"Got a home on high Ain't nothing but a stranger in this world I'm nothing but a stranger in this world I got a home on high In another land So far away."

"Way over on the railroad, Tomorrow all the tipping trucks will unload together, Every scrapbook stuck with glue, And I'll stand beside you, Beside you, child."

"The dynamo of your smile caressed a barefoot virgin child to wander."

"And I shall drive my chariot Down your streets and cry 'Hey, it's me, I'm dynamite And I don't know why' We shall walk and talk In gardens all misty wet with rain And I will never, never, never Grow so old again"

"Yonder comes my lady Rainbow ribbons in her hair Yonder comes my lady Rainbow ribbons in her hair Six white horses and a carriage She's returning from the fair"

"And you know you gotta go On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row Throwing pennies at the bridges down below And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow Say goodbye to Madame George Dry your eye for Madame George Wonder why for Madame George"

"And this time I forget to slip into your slumber The light is on the left side of your head And I'm standing in your doorway And I'm mumbling and I can't remember the last thing that ran through my head"

"Saw you early this morning With your brand new boy and your Cadillac Saw you early this morning With your brand new boy and your Cadillac You're gone for something And I know you won't be back"

"Well it's a marvelous night for a moondance, With the stars up above in your eyes. A fantabulous night to make romance, 'Neath the cover of October skies. And all the leaves on the trees are falling To the sound of the breezes that blow. And I'm trying to please to the calling Of your heart-strings that play soft and low. And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush, And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love? Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?"

"I can hear her heart beat from a thousand miles And the heavens open every time she smiles And when I come to her that's where I belong Yet I'm running to her like a river's song."

"Turn up your radio and let me hear the song Switch on your electric light Then we can get down to what is really wrong I long to hold you tight so I can feel you Sweet lady of the night I shall reveal you."

"And it stoned me to my soul Stoned me just like Jelly Roll And it stoned me And it stoned me to my soul Stoned me just like goin' home. And it stoned me."

"Hark, now hear the sailors cry, Smell the sea and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic."

"And when that foghorn blows, I will be coming home, When that foghorn blows, I wanna hear it, I don't have to fear it, And I wanna rock your gypsy soul, Just like way back in the days of old, And magnificently we will fold Into the mystic."

"My back was up against the wall And you slowly just walked away You never really heard my call When I cried out that way With my face against the sun You pointed out for me to go Then you said I was the one Had to reap what you did sow."

"When all the dark clouds roll away And the sun begins to shine I see my freedom from across the way And it comes right in on time Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light And it comes from the sky above Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me And lights my life with love."

"I was lost and double crossed, With my hands behind my back. I was longtime hurt and thrown in the dirt, Shoved out on the railroad track. I've been used, abused and so confused, And I had nowhere to run. But I stood and looked, And my eyes got hooked On that beautiful morning sun."

"By the winding stream we shall lie and dream We'll make dreams come true if we want them to Yes all will come play the pipes and drum Sing a happy song and we'll sing along."

"And they'll talk to you while you're in trances And you'll visualize not taking any chances But meet them halfway with love, peace and persuasion And expect them to rise for the occasion."

"Don't want to discuss it, I think it's time for a change. You may get disgusted, some think that I'm strange In that case I'll go underground, get some heavy rest Never have to worry, about what is worst and what is best."

"Someone to hold onto And keep me from all fear Someone to be my guiding light And keep me ever dear To keep me from my selfishness To keep me from my sorrow To lead me on to givingness So I can see a new tomorrow."

"Why did you leave America? Why did you let me down? And now that things seem better off, Why do you come around? You know I just can't see you now In my new world crystal ball. You know I just can't free you now, That's not my job at all."

"And all the girls walk by Dressed up for each other And the boys do the boogie-woogie On the corner of the street And the people passin' by Just stare in wild wonder And the inside juke-box Roars out just like thunder."

"Waiting for the sun to shine And you know sometimes it gets so painful Just like talking to yourself When everything don't seem to have no rhyme or reason we all go Do do loo do do, do do loo do do Waiting for the sun to shine."

"Oh don't it get you Get you when you're through Feel the breezes blowing all around your coat Oh don't it get you When you gotta roam Hear the children singing My daddy's coming home"

"You can't stop us on the road to freedom You can't stop us 'cause our eyes can see Men with insight, men in granite Knights in armor intent on chivalry She's as sweet as Tupelo honey She's an angel of the first degree She's as sweet as Tupelo honey Just like honey, baby, from the bee"

"I'm in heaven, I'm in heaven I'm in heaven when you smile, when you smile."

"Laying underneath the stars Can be so much fun Especially when you're feeling good When you're with the one you love."

"And I shall search my soul, I shall search my very soul, For the lion, For the lion, For the lion, For the lion inside me."

"And we're sailing, we're sailing, Way up to Caledonia, We're from Denmark."

"Oh redwood tree, Please let us under, When we were young we used to go, Under the redwood tree, And it smelled like rain, Maybe even thunder, Won't you keep us from all harm, Wonderful redwood tree."

"Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall It's not a matter of when push comes to shove It's just an hour on the wings of a dove."

"Put your money where your mouth is Then we can get something going In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime And leave one or two cards showing."

"Did you ever hear about the great deception? Well the plastic revolutionaries take the money and run. Have you ever been down to love city? Where they rip you off with a smile, And it don't take a gun."

"Leaves of brown they fall to the ground. And it's here, over there leaves around. Shut the door, dim the lights and relax. What is more, your desire or the facts?"

"Fair play to you, Kilarney's lakes are so blue, And the architecture I'm taking in with my mind, So fine."

"And there's only one man knows way to go, And we say 'Geronimo.'"

"Hi-ho, silver! Tit for tat! And I love you for that."

"Linden Arden stole the highlights With one hand tied behind his back. Loved the morning sun and whiskey Ran like water in his veins. Loved to go to church on Sunday, Even though he was a drinkin' man. When the boys came to San Francisco, They were looking for his life. But he found out where they were drinking, Met them face to face outside. Cleaved their heads off with a hatchet, Lord, he was a drinkin' man. And when somebody tried to get above him, He just took the law into his own hands. Linden Arden stole the highlights, And they put his fingers through the glass. He had heard all those stories many, many times before, And he did not care, nor know, to ask. And he loved the little children like they were his very own. You say 'Someday, he may get lonely, Now he's livin', livin' with a gun.'"

"When the ghost comes round at midnight Well you both can have some fun He can drive you mad, he can make you sad He can keep you from the sun When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound And the hand does fit the glove And no matter what they tell you, There's good and evil in everyone."

"Come here my love And I will lift my spirits high for you I'd like to fly away and spend a day or two Just contemplating the fields and leaves and talking about nothing Just layin' down in shades of effervescent, effervescent odors And shades of time and tide."

"Well let them take you for a clown And they're bound to bring you down. You got to make it through the world if you can. Think they're doing you wrong But you got here on your own. You got to make it through the world if you can."

"In the land of a thousand dances, I dance with you. I was out I was taking my chances When dreams came true When you came into my dream Like from a whisper to a scream."

"And I shall get to know you In these lifetimes In awe and wonder On down through the years The nighttime angel spreads her wings around me I feel the silence And my doubts are cleared."

"To Santa Fe Do you need it? Can you feel it in the same old way? I can feel it from the mountain top Runnin' down to the foamy brine In a rest'rant 'cross a table top Looking into a glass of wine Whispering in the evening breeze Green leaves glist'ning eucalyptus trees Can you hear them? Or get near them?"

"Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea They thought great thoughts about liberty Poets wrote down words that did fit Writers wrote books Thinkers thought about it."

"From the dark end of the street To the bright side of the road We’ll be lovers once again on the Bright side of the road"

"Some people spend their time just runnin' round in circles Always chasing some exotic bird I prefer to spend some time just listening for that special something That I've never ever heard I like a new song to sing, another show or somewhere entirely different to be But baby you make me feel so free."

"Walkin' on a city street who would think you could ever be touched By a total stranger, not me But when you came up to me that day and I listened to your story It reminded me so much of myself It wasn't what you said but the way it felt to me About a search and a journey just like mine."

"When you hear the music ringin' in your soul And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun I want you to put on your pretty summer dress You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest And I wanna make love to you yes, yes, yes and the healing has begun."

"You know what they're writing about Baby you know what they're writing about It's a thing called love down through the ages Makes you wanna cry sometimes Makes you feel like you wanna lay down and die sometimes Makes you high sometimes But when you really get in it lifts you right up."

"Beside the garden walls, We walk in haunts of ancient peace. At night we rest and go to sleep In haunts of ancient peace. The love and light we seek, The words we do not need to speak, Here in this wondrous way we keep These haunts of ancient peace."

"Open your arms in the early mornin' When the light comes shinin' through Can't you hear my heart beat just for you? It's beating so wild, honey. And light comes shinin' Singin' my song And the band is playin' And the music is tried and true."

"I have seen without perceiving I have been another man Let me pierce the realm of glamour So I know just what I am."

"What's my line? I'm happy cleaning windows Take my time I'll see you when my love grows Baby don't let it slide I'm a working man in my prime Cleaning windows..."

"Rave on, down through the industrial revolution Empiricism, atomic and nuclear age Rave on down through time and space down through the corridors Rave on words on printed page."

"Oh won't you stay Stay a while with your own ones Don't ever stray Stray so far from your own ones 'Cause the world is so cold Don't care nothing for your soul That you share with your own ones."

"Your street, rich street or poor Used to always be sure, on your street There's a place in your heart you know from the start Can't be complete outside of the street Keep moving on through the joy and the pain Sometimes you got to look back To the street again Would you prefer all those castles in Spain? Or the view of your street from your window pane?"

"Showed me pictures in the gallery Showed me novels on the shelf Put my hands across the table Gave me knowledge of myself. Showed me visions, showed me nightmares Gave me dreams that never end Showed me light out of the tunnel When there was darkness all around instead."

"I walked in my greatcoat Down through the days of the leaves. No before after, yes after before We were shining our light into the days of blooming wonder In the eternal presence, in the presence of the flame."

"There's an angel that's watching right over you All your trials have not been in vain Won't you lift your head up to the starry night Finding strength in the things that remain."

"When a man comes through He must do what he's supposed to do When a man comes through. He can't do what everyone expects him to."

"Got my ticket at the airport Well I guess I've been marking time I've been living in another country That operates along entirely different lines Keep me away from porter or whiskey Don't play anything sentimental it'll make me cry I've got to go back my friend Is there really any need to ask why?"

"No Guru, no method, no teacher Just you and I and nature And the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost In the garden wet with rain."

"Thanks for the information Never give a sucker an even break When he's breaking through To a new level of consciousness There always seems to be more Obstacles in the way Thanks for the information I know It's only a combat zone Thanks for the memory, I'll just have To carry on on my own."

"When you come down From your Ivory Tower You will see how it really must be To be like me, to see like me, To feel like me."

"Let go into the mystery Let yourself go You've got to open up your heart That's all I know Trust what I say and do what you're told Baby, and all your dirt will turn Into gold."

"There's a dream where the contents are visible Where the poetic champions compose Will you breathe not a word of this secrecy, and Will you still be my special rose?"

"I forgot that love existed, troubled in my mind. Heartache after heartache, worried all the time. I forgot that love existed Then I saw the light Everyone around me make everything alright."

"I've been travellin' a hard road Baby lookin' for someone exactly like you I've been carryin' my heavy load Waiting for the light to come shining through Someone like you Make it all worth while Someone like you Make me satisfied Someone exactly like you."

"Well I've got to get out of the rat-race now I'm tired of the ways of mice and men And the empires all turning into rust again. Out of everything nothing remains the same That's why I'm cloud hidden Cloud hidden Whereabouts unknown."

"Won't you guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand your way Let me be just and worthy to receive All the blessings of the Lord into my life."

"Sometimes, when the spirit moves me I can do many wondrous things I wanna know when the spirit moves you Did ye get healed?"

"Whenever God shines his light on me Opens up my eyes so I can see When I look up in the darkest night I know everything's going to be alright In deep confusion, in great despair When I reach out for him he is there When I am lonely as I can be I know that God shines his light on me."

"I'd love to write another song Baby especially for you I'd love to write another song And feel things bright and new In poetry I'd carve it well I'd even make it rhyme I'd love to write another song Just to get some peace of mind."

"Have I told you lately that I love you? Have I told you there's no one above you? Fill my heart with gladness, Take away my sadness, Ease my troubles, that's what you do."

"I look at the side of your face as the sunlight comes Streaming through the window in the autumn sunshine And all the time going to Coney Island I'm thinking, Wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time."

"Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner."

"Whatever it takes to fulfill his mission That is the way we must go But you've got to do it your own way Tear down the old, bring up the new."

"These are the days of the endless summer These are the days, the time is now There is no past, there's only future There's only here, there's only now. Oh your smiling face, your gracious presence The fires of spring are kindling bright And the radiant heart and the song of glory Crying freedom, freedom in the night"

"These are the days now that we must savour And we must enjoy as we can These are the days that will last forever You've got to hold them, hold them in your heart"

"Some people say You can make it on your own Oh you can make it if you try I know better now You can't stand up alone Oh baby that is why.I'm real real gone I can't stand up by myself Don't you know I need your help You're a friend of mine And I'm real real gone."

"Enlightenment says the world is nothing Nothing but a dream, everything's an illusion And nothing is real."

"The warm look of radiance on your face And your heart beating close to mine And the evening fading in the candle glow This must be what it's all about Oh this must be what it's all about This must be what paradise is like So quiet in here. So peaceful in here So quiet in here, yeah, so peaceful in here."

"The way you see me walking on That's why I'm telling you in song There's only one way to get ahead You've got to give it up instead Start all over again."

"Say que sera, whatever will be But then I keep on searching for immortality She's so beautiful but she's going to die some day Everything in life just passes away But, precious time is slipping away You know she's only queen for a day It doesn't matter to which God you pray"

"And it's a hard road, it's a hard road daddy-o When my job is turning lead into gold He was born in the back street, born in the back street jelly roll I'm on the road again and I'm searching for The philosophers stone Can you hear that engine Can you hear that engine drone Well I'm on the road again and I'm searching for..."

"I saw you standing with the wind and the rain in your face And you were thinking 'bout the wisdom of the leaves and their grace When the leaves come falling down In September when the leaves, come falling down Oh, the last time I saw Paris in the streets, in the rain And as I walk along the boulevards with you, once again And the leaves come falling down In September, when the leaves come falling down"

"Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture."

"They asked me to come to New York to help celebrate Van's induction into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. I went because I see Van as one of the cats that has kept the faith. Like me, he's always himself — he stays true to the music that means the most to him. It meant a lot to sing "Crazy Love" on stage that evening."

"He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures — and even in that company he is one of the greatest — Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries —R. and B., Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues — he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."

"I love Van Morrison because he always seems to be searching, never found. I don't know about his personal life but in his music he gives the listener only a question. The answer lies elsewhere to be attained someday."

"Van Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of modern popular music."

"Van Morrison should be friggin' canonized."

"My first impression of Van Morrison was that he was a terrific singer. No, I take that back. I thought he was a really dirty singer. Everything he did had a real big pair of balls to it."

"A great Irish poet"

"He has this great poetic and fantastic voice and what I love about Van, and what I forget to do sometimes is, well I can tell when Van is just like drifting into sort of a zone he just drifts into a place where the whole world is shut out and you can tell that he's in that spot. It's almost a dream-like, trance-like state, singing sometimes. That's really what music is all about. It's almost a jazz concept if you know what I mean — you just kinda go out and you're just wingin' it and I love that about Van, he will risk that, he will go on and on and on and he won't fade the ending before the magic happens, as it were."

"There was a definite charisma when Van performed. Van always had something about him. Whether you liked it or not, you could never take away from the fact that he was different from all other human beings, and here he is today, still being different."

"Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other performer in the history of rock 'n' roll, a singer who can not be pinned down, dismissed or fitted into anyone's expectations. He is a conundrum."

"Walk right in, sit right down, baby let your hair hang down. Everybody's talking 'bout a new way of walking; Do you want to lose you mind?"

"I am the blues I am the blues The whole world knows I've been mistreated and misused."

"According to Biblical history and all of the history of the world, the blues was built in man from the beginning. The first thing that came out of man is the blues because, according to the Scriptures, when God made man, man was lonesome and blue."

"That's the reason I always say about music, the blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. Without the roots, you have no fruits so it's better keeping the roots alive because it means better fruits from now on."

"The blues is the roots; everything else is the fruits."

"Some people think they've got religion, they've got the blues."

"Make no mistake about it, making a good record is pure, unadulterated pain. If you fall and break your leg--that's pain. But I'm telling you, the phase between pain and death? That's making a good record. It's extreme."

"Every time feels like my first time. And I just find that the process of it feeds into one's own self-obsession."

"My band is the best band in the world, period. So, I insist on every song being better then it is on the record. So by the end of the tour, we have to be playing the song better then how it’s recorded."

"You see mama don't watch your damn football And your beer drinkin' just won't do You're just stayin' out late And you're preachin' the hate And you never have been trueYou see mama she want her somebody Who will let her be herself So she's leavin' you And your stinky damn ways Cause she's found somebody else"

"You may write me down in history With your bitter twisted lies You may trod me down in the very dirt And still like the dust I'll rise."

"I believe in a few things: God the devil and love. 'Cause I've looked up from the bottom And I've stared down from above.I have faith in a few things: Divinity and grace. But even when I'm on my knees I know the devil prays.And you're working your way From the ground on down."

"My choice is what I choose to do. And if I'm causing no harm It shouldn't bother you. Your choice is who you choose to be. And if your causin' no harm Then you're alright with me."

"Excuse me Mr. But isn't that your oil in the sea? And the pollution in the air Mr. Whose could that be?So excuse me Mr. But I'm a mister too And you're givin' Mr. a bad name, Mr. like you."

"It will make a weak man mighty; It will make a mighty man fall. It will fill your heart and hands; Or leave you with nothing at all. It's the eyes for the blind And legs for the lame. It is love for hate, And pride for shame.That's the power of the gospel. That's the power of the gospel. That's the power of the mighty power. That's the power of the gospel."

"Listen stranger, passerby, And those I never knew. There's not one day that you are living Has been promised to you."

"In my life I have been blessed In my life I have been cursed I have lived the best of times I have suffered the worst Do you know which road you're traveling? Do you know where you want to be? With so many roads to travel, There's just one can set you free."

"Sometimes I feel I know strangers Better than I know my friends Why must a beginning Be the means to an end?The stones from my enemies These wounds will mend But I cannot survive The roses from my friends."

"Could've sworn I heard you say amen this morning, showing some kind of sign that you believe Did it fall from your tongue without warning or just another trick to fall from your sleeve? Did I hear you say that you believe in angels? I guess I bring the devil out in you. But we can both remove our halos 'cause even an angel needs love too. Even angels need love too."

"Where did you learn to do that so well? Where did you learn to do that so well? I guess that would be like kiss and tell. If it's a secret, why did you show me?"

"Real life has let you down. Real life has let you down. Someone stripped the jewel from your crown. Everybody owes somebody something."

"Now I love to feel that warm southern rain, Just to hear it fall is the sweetest sounding thing. And to see it fall on your simple country dress It's like heaven to me I must confess."

"Now I've been hangin' 'round you for days, Bt when I lean in you just turn your head away. Oh no, you didn't mean that. She said I love the way you think, but I hate the way you act."

"I can change the world With my own two hands Make a better place With my own two hands Make a kinder place."

"A candle throws its light into the darkness In a nasty world, so shines the good deed Make sure the fortune, that you seek Is the fortune you need."

"Take my hand when you are worried Take my hand when you're alone Take my hand and let me guide you Take my hand to lead you home."

"Children come running to the truth But you've got to peel the skin to get the fruit And while one's living high another's grieving But what's sweet by morning is bitter by the evening Oh - What's sweet by morning is bitter by the evening."

"The world awakens on the run And will soon be earning With hopes of better days to come It's a morning yearning."

"Fools will be fools, And wise will be wise. But I will look this world Straight in the eyes.What good is a man Who won't take a stand? What good is a cynic With no better plan?"

"When your whole world is shaken from all the risks we have taken, Dance with me, dance with me into the colors of the dusk."

"The lifetime we've left behind with strangers Promises and lies both have their dangers. I just can't be wrong enough and I can't hide for long enough So far away, but I still feel your pain."

"The very thing that drives you, can drive you insane Got a head full of thought crimes and a number with no name Got an eleventh hour Jesus and a mouth full of blame A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name."

"You can run away from home But you can't run away from your pain I sit here alone There's always someone else to blame."

"Now that you've grown up You can finally learn to be a child We made it to the end of the world But we'll never make it out alive."

"Some things You have to let be lost Some battles, some battles You have to leave unfought.Then the truth just wastes away In all we dare not say. And in all we can't explain But I faithfully remain."

"Hardly a day goes by without me sticking on a Muddy Waters record."

"One of the things that was crucial for me I got from Rory Gallagher, which was the idea of, like, being a guitar player for life and living it."

"Rory's death really upset me. I heard about it just before we went on stage, and it put a damper on the evening. I can't say I knew him that well, but I remember meeting him in our offices once, and we spent an hour talking. He was such a nice guy and a great player."

"So these couple of kids come up, who's me and my mate, and say 'How do you get your sound Mr. Gallagher?' and he sits and tells us. So I owe Rory Gallagher my sound."

"Rory's death is a tragic loss of a great musician and a very good friend..."

"The man who got me back into the blues."

"An uncompromisingly serious musician."

"In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine? Can't you just feel the moonshine? Ain't it just like a friend of mine To hit me from behind? Yes, I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind."

"And as the moon rises he sits by his fire Thinking about women and glasses of beer. And closing his eyes as the dogies retire, He sings out a song which is soft but it's clear, As if maybe someone could hear.Goodnight you moonlight ladies. Rockabye sweet baby James. Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose. Won't you let me go down in my dreams? And rockabye sweet baby James."

"Take to the highway, won't you lend me your name? Your way and my way seem to be one and the same, child. Mamma don't understand it. She wants to know where I've been. I'd have to be some kind of natural born fool To want to pass that way again. But I could feel it On a country road."

"Just yesterday morning, they let me know that you were gone. Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you. I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song, I just can't remember who to send it to. I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. But I always thought that I'd see you again."

"Won't you look down upon me, Jesus, You've got to help me make a stand. You've just got to see me through another day. My body's aching and my time is at hand And I won't make it any other way."

"I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time, My back turned towards the sun. Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around. Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line, To talk about things to come. Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground."

"Where do those golden rainbows end? Why is this song so sad? Dreaming the dreams I've dreamed my friend Loving the love I love To love is just a word I've heard when things are being said Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold And in between what might have been and what has come to pass A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass…"

"Do me wrong, do me right, Tell me lies but hold me tight, Save your goodbyes for the morning light, But don't let me be lonely tonight."

"Most everybody's got seed to sow It ain't always easy for a weed to grow, oh no. So he don't hoe the row for no one. Oh for sure he's always missing. And something is never quite right. Ah, but who would want to listen to you Kissing his existence good night."

"Oh, Mexico. It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low. Moon's so bright like to light up the night, Make everything all right."

"You can play the game and you can act out the part. Though you know it wasn't written for you. But tell me, how can you stand there with your broken heart, Ashamed of playing the fool? One thing can lead to another; it doesn't take any sacrifice. Oh, father and mother,and sister and brother, If it feels nice, don't think twice."

"Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna work out fine if you only will (do as I say, yeah). Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. Things are gonna be much better if you only will."

"Whenever I see your smiling face I have to smile myself. Because I love you (Yes, I do). And when you give me that pretty little pout, It turns me inside out. There's something about you, baby (I don't know)."

"I thought I was in love A couple of times before With the girl next door. But that was long before I met you. Now I'm sure that I won't forget you. And I thank my lucky stars That you are who you are. And not just another lovely lady Sent down to break my heart."

"Now, the smoke fills the air In this honky-tonk bar. And I'm thinking 'bout where I'd rather be. But I burned all my bridges; I sank all my ships. And I'm stranded at the edge of the sea."

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it; There ain't nothing to it. Nobody knows how we got to The top of the hill. But since we're on our way down, We might as well enjoy the ride."

"The secret of love is in opening up your heart. It's okay to feel afraid, But don't let that stand in your way, no. 'Cause anyone knows that love is the only road. And since we're only here for a while yeah Might as well show some style."

"Seems like even her old girlfriends Might be talking her down. She's got her name on the grapevine Running up and down The telephone line Talking 'bout Someone said, someone said Something 'bout, something else Someone might have said about her She always figured that they were her friends But maybe they can live without her."

"True believer that I am I am blind, lead me on (lead me on) Blessed receiver of your love I own my own time And I've been holding on (holding on) Leave the word unspoken And the spell will not be broken."

"When I grow too old and dull to rock 'n roll Like to hold on tight to you darling And when my fires have all burned out I'd like to think I can still think about The things I used to sing about When I was spending all my time alone By myself and on my own Seldom seen and quite unknown."

"If I had stopped to listen once or twice If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart I'd not be on this road tonight."

"First kiss ever I took Like a page from a romance book. The sky opened and the earth shook."

"At that time my heart was all broke I looked like ashes and smelled like smoke. And I turned away from my loving kind Try to leave my body and live in my mind. But it's much too much emotion To hold it in your hand. They've got waves out on the ocean They're gonna wear away the land."

"I passed on the cocaine, Said bye-bye to my methadone. Put down the bottle for one more day. Backing off of my Tobacco Jones. Still I feel like a hopeless junkie, Like a man who can't say no. I look back and there's that monkey; Rascal won't let go."

"Sweet Baby James laid down the template for ‘singer-songwriter’ when he broke through in the early ‘70s, and has subsequently become an institution. Sensitive and fragile at first blush, Taylor’s songs have steel in the walls that have ensured they’ve passed the test of time. As fine a fingerpicker as there has been, and a songwriter of immense depth and emotional courage, James Taylor is an icon with good reason."

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T Find out what it means to me R-E-S-P-E-C-T Take care … TCB Sock it to me, Sock it to me, Sock it to me."

"Speak your name And I'll feel a thrill. You said I do, And I said I will.I tell you that I'll stay true, And give you just a little time. Wait on me baby, I want you to be all mine. I just get so blue.Since you've been gone, baby (why'd you do it? why'd you have to do it?)"

"People walkin' around everyday, Playin' games and takin' scores. Tryin' to make other people lose their minds. Well be careful you don't lose yours.Oh think (think) Think about what you're tryin' to do to me. Woo-hoo think (think) Let your mind go let yourself be free.You need me (need me) And I need you (don't cha know) Without each other There ain't nothin' we two can do."

"I want to be what he wants when he wants it, and whenever he needs it And when he's lonesome and feelin' love starved I'll be there to feed it I'm givin' him a little bit for each day He turns me right on when I hear him say(Hey baby let's get away, let's go somewhere far) (Baby can we?) Well I don't care."

"Step n' move your hips With a feelin' from side to side Sit yourself down in your car And take a ride.And while you're movin' Rock steady Rock steady baby. Let's call this song exactly what it is (What it is -what it is - what it is)"

"You walked in on the sly Scopin' for love In the crowd, I caught your eye You can't hide your stuff.You came to catch You thought I'd be naive and tame You met your match I beat you at your own game."

"In order to become Aretha Franklin you really have to be able to assess an inheritance and find yourself able to use it."

"What made her talent so great was her capacity to live what she sang. Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African American experience growing up in her father’s church, the community of Detroit, and her awareness of the turmoil of the South. She had a lifelong, unwavering commitment to civil rights and was one of the strongest supporters of the movement. She was our sister and our friend. Whenever I would see her, from time to time, she would always inquire about the well-being of people she met and worked with during the sixties.When she sang, she embodied what we were fighting for, and her music strengthened us. It revived us. When we would be released from jail after a non-violent protest, we might go to a late night club and let the music of Aretha Franklin fill our hearts. She was like a muse whose songs whispered the strength to continue on. Her music gave us a greater sense of determination to never give up or give in, and to keep the faith. She was a wonderful, talented human being. We mourn for Aretha Franklin. We have lost the Queen of Soul."

"Hopefully, these characters bring us closer to a sense of self: honest and honored. Icons: Toussaint Louverture to José Martí to lesser known heroes, Atahualpa and Denmark Vesey. We lace our visions with Celia Cruz and Aretha Franklin."

"I am Joss Stone and I am a vegetarian. I'm a singer, a songwriter, a performer and a human being accepting of all sizes, shapes, colours and species."

"I was born a vegetarian. … I feel there is no need to cause another living thing pain or harm. There are so many other things we can eat. I have never eaten meat in my life, and I’m 5 foot 10 and not exactly wasting away. A wise man once said, ‘Animals are my friends, and I’m not in the habit of eating my friends.’ That is exactly how I feel."

"They call, they call me the fat man 'Cause I weight two hundred pounds All the girls they love me 'Cause I know my way around."

"You made me cry, when you said goodbye Ain't that a shame My tears fell like rain Ain't that a shame You're the one to blame"

"I found my thrill On Blueberry Hill On Blueberry Hill When I found you."

"Blue Monday how I hate Blue Monday Got to work like a slave all day Here come Tuesday, oh hard Tuesday I'm so tired got no time to play"

"On media consideration to be a reluctant rock star: I'm not a reluctant rock star, I am not one at all. I haven't an ounce of rock star in me. [...] What I despise about the rock star lifestyle is the lack of music in it. The average day is spent travelling to hotels, giving interviews, being nice to people you're told to be nice to, and maybe if you're lucky you might squeeze a bit of music in. The musician's day is music. [...] I am in that unique little club, where I went into music because I love music, not because I wanted to be rich and famous. I've always knocked on the door of the musicians' room, not the rock stars' room. The British press refuses to see the difference between them, mainly because of the capers of people like Phil Collins, a musician who behaves like a rock star. But there are people who love music and have no interest in being a rock star at all."

"On working at La Passione (1996): Day one, the damage was done. All it was meant to be was one hour of a little boy’s dreams. And I had things I wanted to do with the guitar that hadn’t been done before. Like, there’s one number called "Olive Oil", where I was actually playing slide guitar in the same scale as a saxophone. [...] But then in came millions of executives from America. So in the end, it fell flat on its arse. And it came out the same week that Britpop took off. Blair had just won the election. Oasis. Spice Girls. So something a bit Fellini-ish – about a little boy who loved red cars – went straight over the top. It was like, ‘Well, don’t you have a 335 guitar with a Union Jack on it?’"

"On Charley Patton's voice and music style: I heard this fella, and his voice sounded like my voice. I’d always thought, ‘Well, I could never be a singer with this horrible voice’. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. Still do. But he sounded like the same kind of thing. I didn’t know black American terms: a boll weevil or turnpike blues. But there was an emotion that clicked with me. I became fascinated with gospel blues. I still play more gospel than Chicago. I very rarely go anywhere near that speed, aggression, Clapton thing. Someone once reviewed me, saying the testosterone was missing from my blues solos, because I don’t do Chicago. It’s just alien to me."

"On blues in the music industry: You say that word ‘blues’ to anybody in the business – and they fucking run a mile. It’s unbelievable. I had a lot of trouble with Road To Hell. We’d actually recorded the next album – Auberge – before, as an agreement with Warner Brothers. So if Road To Hell didn’t work – and they said it won’t – we would jump straight away to Auberge and forget about it. Of course, the beginning to Road To Hell is a gospel-blues thing. Warner Brothers went, ‘This is going to be over in five minutes’. But I did stand me ground, and it went No.1."

"On modern blues: Me and the modern blues scene, we have difficulty getting on. I sometimes get the feeling that it’s all sixth-form college: ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do that.’ A lot of modern blues is academic. It’s what someone else did. But the blues is one of the biggest examples of evolution. It’s in constant change. You can’t document it and say ‘stop’. It should be free. [...] And has become some kind of technical thing. I’m fed up now of seeing, ‘Oh, this guitarist is faster than that guitarist’ – that’s got nothing to do with the fucking blues. Then you get guys who come along like Allman’s nephew (Derek Trucks): now that’s good. Fuck me. That’s what blues should be: something you haven’t heard before. The other stuff can get a bit like... you know when you fart in the bath? These scales get so fucking fast. Musically, emotionally, it ceases to do anything."

"On his refusal of a set for MTV Unplugged: It’s one of the biggest career mistakes I’ve ever made. I’d be so much more wealthy, because of America. I was offered one of the first ones. But I saw Eric Clapton on it, and it reminded me of Pebble Mill At One. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want anything to do with this’. Because he’s like God to me. [...] So I turned it down. I should have had an older brother who said, ‘Fucking do it’."

"On his first Ferrari: Yeah. It was instant disappointment. (Pink Floyd drummer) Nick Mason said to me once, ‘Chris, do yourself a favour. Stop trying to make excuses about all this. You’re a sad bastard. It could have been heroin. But it’s red cars.’ And he was right. There was nowhere to drive the fucking thing. Y’know, you put it in your garage. You didn’t want anyone to know you had it. Then you take it out, and you couldn’t find anywhere you could do more than 40 miles an hour. I’m a competent driver. I’ve raced at Monza. But it’s a terrible thing. Blues guitar and motor racing bring out real testosterone in some guys."

"On his neglect of being a rock star: There’s a certain discipline about being a rock star, and I don’t have it. If I was a rock star, I wouldn’t have let a photographer in here, dressed like this. I’d have been down the hairdressers. You try and get Sting to do something without 15 advisors. These boys are like Russian princes..."

"On the disappearance of "rock star" hysteria surrounding him: I took it rather better than some of them I could tell you about, who had nervous breakdowns because they’re not the king any more. I found fame really annoying. Anything to do with ‘celebrity’, I just don’t get."

"On the rock stars: Rock stars don’t talk to each other. They’re too important to talk to another one. They’ve all got their own little palace, their own universe, of which they are the head. So how can they possibly go to somebody else’s universe? They can’t handle it. I will one day write the book that shows just how massive some of these egos are. Because I was a slow success, I was meeting people socially whose records I had at home, who were now talking to me on a what-strings-do-you-use level. And very few of them have not disappointed. [Pink Floyd’s] Dave Gilmour is the only one that [hasn’t disappointed]. That paints everyone else as a cunt. Which they are. But Gilmour is fabulous."

"On the artist, Charley Patton, who changed him: What happened was I was going out on a Saturday night, so I went into my mam’s bedroom, she’s got a double mirror, really kitsch 50s. So I’m in there, doing that, and she’s got an old alarm clock where the radio comes on, but she never learned how to do it properly. And it came on. [...] I remember it was ten past three in the afternoon and it was winter, it was getting dark, and it was when the BBC had just started doing Telstar live things from America. It was some station in Memphis - one of those classic names, ‘RK 51’ or whatever. [...] On it came and there’s this record. The satellite thing was a bit cloudy and it was a 78 record and there was compression on the radio, so it was this strange kind of musical blur with this voice coming through: Charley Patton. [...] On that night I told the bass player of one of the local bands that I’d heard this record and it sounded weird, it sounded like a violin. He said, ‘No, it’s not a violin, it’s a slide guitar.’ I thought, ‘What’s one of them?’"

"On the change of the original version of La Passione (1996) by Warner Vision: ...they thought it was a great idea and we started - and more and more people were turning up and I didn’t know who the fuck they were. ‘Oh, that’s Arty somebody, he’s from Warner Vision, he’s flown over from…’ and they’re all yapping away and none of them could get their heads round the idea that it wasn’t meant to be a story. [...] Anyway, egos went all over the place and I lost complete control of it and what I intended it to be hardly went in to the terrible, boring film. And the other thing that really hurt was I did three tracks - which sadly we lost - where, if something mischievous happened, the original idea was to bring in the slide guitar that would start playing a Count Basie routine. All that never happened, it was a shame. [...] They didn’t understand at all, especially the Americans, I mean… I got permission at Ferrari to have their place for a day and there was no film stock left - and I think that sums up the project."

"On his experience with streaming, illegal downloading: Every Christmas we got a nice little present off God, you know, with sales of The Best Of… and since it’s gone in to YouTube the shortfall is over 90 per cent because people don’t need to buy the record. They would but you’re offering them Driving Home For Christmas for 32p. [...] You see, I’m lucky - we did very well. I feel sorry for the young Chris Reas who aren’t pop stars but love music, but they don’t have anywhere to go with the music, you know? I mean Derek Trucks, it’s just criminal what’s happened to his potential sales because of what’s happened to the business."

"Fool if you think it's over 'Cause you said goodbye Fool if you think it's over I'll tell you why New born eyes always cry with pain At the first look at the mornin' sun Fool if you think it's over It's just begun"

"There's rain on my window But I'm thinking of you Tears on my pillow But I will come through Josephine I'll send you all my love And every single step, I'll take I'll take for you"

"Driving in my car I'm driving home for Christmas With a thousand memories I take look at the driver next to me He's just the same Just the same"

"Look out world take a good look What comes down here You must learn this lesson fast And learn it well This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway Oh no, this is the road to Hell"

"I was criticized by some people for my first album because they said I was taking sacred music. They knew nothing about what I was doing. That was no sacred music; that's music I wrote. I patterned it around voodoo church music, but it wasn't exactly the music of the lyrics of nothing'."

"Well, I like to think about what Louis Armstrong and also Duke Ellington said about music. There'are only two kinds of music: good and bad... And, I would like to think about my music as being good."

"When the voice and the vision on the inside is more profound, and more clear and loud than all opinions on the outside, you've begun to master your life."

"When I look out at the people and they look at me and they're smiling, then I know that I'm loved. That is the time when I have no worries, no problems."

"I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture."

"It feels so good to be happy."

"I was just sitting here thinkin’ of your kiss and your warm embrace, when the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now revealed the tears that was on my face."

"I got a feeling, I feel so strange, Everything about me seems to have changed. Step by step, I got a brand new walk, I even sound sweeter when I talk."

"I would rather, I would rather go blind boy Than to see you walk away from me child, and all. So you see, I love you so much That I don't want to watch you leave me baby. Most of all, I just don't, I just don't want to be free no."

"Sittin' down by my window, Honey, lookin' out at the rain. Lord, Lord, Lord, sittin' down by my window, Baby, lookin' out at the rain. Somethin' came along, grabbed a hold of me, And it felt just like a ball and chain. Honey, that's exactly what it felt like, Honey, just dragging me down."

"Love's got a hold on me, baby, Feels just like a ball and chain. Now, love's just draggin' me down, baby, yeah, Feels like a ball and chain. I hope there's someone out there who could tell me Why the man I love wanna leave me in so much pain. Yeah, maybe, maybe you could help me, come on, help me!"

"Although he started out on acoustic, it was with Muddy’s transition onto the electric that captivated the music world, with the hulking bluesman using a slide alongside open G tuning on many of his greatest tracks, including ‘Mannish Boy’ and ‘Honey Bee’. Waters was also noted for his immense vibrato, and was famous for rolling up the volume knob prior to his solos to create eardrum shattering levels of distortion to cut through the mix and write himself into history."

"BB King is one of the most influential guitarists in history and can be credited with inventing guitar soling using string bends and vibrato."

"Every guitarist who bends or vibratoes a string to make it sing owes a debt to B.B. King. With influences as diverse as T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, the late guitarist turned the blues world upside down in 1952 with “3 O’Clock Blues.” Almost overnight, the harmonica was supplanted as the primary solo instrument in blues, as guitarists scrambled to imitate B.B.’s soloing style, especially in Chicago."

"Albert King is the Muhammad Ali of blues guitar -- a heavyweight with finesse, a bruiser with grace. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

"There are only a few immediately recognizable electric guitarists and Albert King is one of them. [...] Perhaps the main ingredient in his uniqueness is his sense of dynamics."

"[King] used to be a bulldozer driver, and plays like it. An awesomely physical guitarist, he may grab a note by the throat and muscle it up to the breaking point with his beefy right hand. Or he may just squeeze that note a little, and a little more, and a little more, teasing, coaxing, twisting it into place with subtly shaded bends. Albert King is the master of both the knockout band the nuance, and for him both extremes yield remarkably expressive results. [...] With his electrifying vibrato and eternal sustain, he covers a range of expression from delicate quips to police siren wails."

"Like his renowned guitar playing, Albert's husky voice is a most sensitive blues instrument -- sometimes powerful, sometimes gentle, often both. It's an intimate voice, full of experience and humor, and it's just as personal and identifiable as his guitar work."

"There has been no more potent embodiment of that spirit than the singer Huddie Ledbetter, known as ‘Leadbelly’. Ordinary he wasn’t: born in rural Texas in c.1888, regal in bearing and strong as an ox, he claimed to be the world’s greatest cotton picker, railroad track layer, lover, drinker and guitar player. His pride was matched by a temper and disposition to violence, resulting in spells in prison for assault and murder. And it was in 1933, in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, that he was discovered by folksong collectors John and Alan Lomax. Under the sponsorship of the Lomaxes, Leadbelly began his rise to stardom, benefiting from the gathering vogue for trad jazz and rugged authenticity. He gave concerts across the US and Europe, dying in New York in 1949. Though the strictest arbiters exclude his work from the jazz canon, it’s hard not to recognise his vital link to the essential force of the music."

"It's safe to say that Bruce is the least prominent member of the legendary power trio Cream. That said, Bruce was more than capable of holding his own with bandmates Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker within the confines of the band that gave us iconic rock tracks such as "White Room" and "Sunshine of Your Love." Trained in classical music and proficient in jazz, Bruce also spent time playing the blues rock associated with Cream. His ability to adapt and excel in several genres of music was a massive part of his greatness. That versatility remains one of the defining characteristics of his professional legacy."