Charlie Christian had no more impact on my playing than Django Reinhardt or Lonnie Johnson. I just wanted to play like him. I wanted to play like all of them. All of these people were important to me. I couldn’t play like any of them, though...
Education is the one thing that no one can take from you.
Kenny Burrell is overall the greatest guitarist in the world and he’s my favorite.
A lot of people believe what other people say.
I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.
I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.
You never miss what you’ve never had. I never had any other life. I didn’t know any other life.
I do it because I still get a kick out of it. I still love performing. It keeps me young.
I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.
When you don’t have much money, you worry that they’ll just put you in the ground someplace and your loved ones won’t know where you are.
The crowds treat me like my last name. When I go onstage people usually stand up, I never ask them to, but they do. They stand up and they don’t know how much I appreciate it.
I don’t try to just be a blues singer – I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.
Water from the white fountain didn’t taste any better than from the black fountain.
When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.
And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.
It just seemed to me that the way I played was nice. I could hear it myself.
I don’t do much recording anymore, but before I really stopped, I was glad to get five, five cent a record. That’s why when I see people today and they complain about what they get, and I picked cotton for $2.50 a day.
My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived I probably wouldn’t be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.
Sometimes the proprietors of the little juke joints gave me a couple dollars. I loved that. I’d go back next Saturday.
I’ve always liked ladies all my life. I guess it started with my mom. So every time I saw a pretty lady, I thought, she’s pretty.
There was a lot of other young players around at that time when I was coming, but there was older people like Blind Lemon, which was one of my favorites. I don’t know, just seemed like everybody I heard could play better than me.