I watched my daddy play that guitar, and whenever I could, I would pick it up and strum on it.
David Edwards
You could play the blues like it was a lonesome thing - it was a feeling. The blues is nothing but a story... The verses which are sung in the blues is a true story, what people are doing... what they all went through. It's not just a song, see?
You play a 'lowdown dirty shame slow and lonesome, my mama dead, my papa across the sea I ain't dead but I'm just supposed to be' blues. You can take that same blues, make it uptempo, a shuffle blues, that's what rock n' roll did with it. So blues ain't going nowhere. Ain't goin' nowhere.
I knew BB King when he first started out.
The turnaround is when you have a solo in betwixt the verses. You stoppin' to have a solo.
I used to play too with a boy who played a saxophone. We didn't play no blues, we'd play a lot of love songs - 'Stardust', 'Blue Moon', 'Out Cold Again', 'Sophisticated Lady', 'Stars Fell On Alabama', a lot of different stuff.
You never learn everything on that guitar neck.
The delta blues is a low-down, dirty shame blues. It's a sad, big wide sound, something to make you think about people who are dead or the women who left you.
I drive every day. I like to gamble.
I played with so many musicians and some of the musicians would have something I want. I steal a lot of them, and I mash it up, I mash it up into my chords.
I don't care how famous a guitarist is, he ain't learned everything. There's always somewhere to go, something to mash up, but he ain't found it yet. You never learn everything on that guitar neck.
I left home when I was 17 with Joe Williams.
My father had slowed down playing a little... I was 'round 10 or 12 years old. Every time he put his guitar down, I pick it up.
Blues ain't never going anywhere. It can get slow, but it ain't going nowhere.
I ain't learn everything yet at 95. But I got good fingers, that's one thing, I got good fingers. If it weren't for them fingers I wouldn't be going now.
When I was running 'round in America, about 30 years old, I didn't want no woman. I knowed I could make enough money to take care of myself, but I didn't want nobody to take care of.
I should have been dead 50, 60 years ago. God just wasn't ready for me. Because I used to raise hell and drink. I've had my fun!
I used to be a drinker but I found out how bad it was and I let it alone.
I seen a lot of changes. You got to make changes. I even make changes in my blues.
I didn't come out until 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening. Sleep all day, sleep and cook and eat, stay in the house. That sun is hot, anyway. It ain't right out there.
You don't have to play a whole lot of guitar to be a good blues player. Some people plays too much guitar. Stack it on top of each other the way it don't - you're working too fast. Blues not supposed to be played fast. Blues supposed to be played slow. You could kill a man with just one chord.
When I started to recording, I gave the name of Honeyboy, but my people only knew me by Honey.
I was 22 years old when I met Robert Johnson. I was there the night he was poisoned.
When I was young, I was everywhere.
You could play the blues like it was a lonesome thing - it was a feeling.
The blues is nothing but a story... The verses which are sung in the blues is a true story, what people are doing... what they all went through. It's not just a song, see?
I'd probably sit around the house and get lonesome if I didn't have something to do.
