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

I didn’t know Albert back then – I just learned to play that way. He and I were the only guys that played left-handed. Then left-handed people came from every direction.

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

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

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.

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

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

I’ll sit around and play my guitar; that’s how I write tunes.

I used to just sign papers and not pay no attention to what I’m signing.

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.

I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.