American Blues Quotes

Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there.

Growing up in Middlesbrough [in England], I listened to artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Howlin' Wolf. It was like another world. Something happened to me when I heard that music. It leapt out of the speakers and went straight into my heart. And I thought, "Right, that's what I'm doing."

When I was sixteen I was pretending to be Charlie Musselwhite. I had a long raincoat on, my hair slicked back, and the shades.

After my early days of being a passionate young Elvis fan, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc. I got interested in Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald. Then I got turned on to the blues. I realized how important it was to our music in England at the time. Everyone was into the blues. Then you start looking at the different kinds of blues, and you follow the journey backwards from Chicago to earlier times back down to the Delta to the Memphis Blues.

Coming up in Chicago, we heard a lot of blues.

Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.

I was into playing American music, especially the blues.

The parallel development in American blues to the British movement has resulted in Johnny Winters.