“It was stumbling on to really the bible of the blues, you know, and a very powerful drug to be introduced to us and I absorbed it totally, and it changed my complete outlook on music.”

This moment in time, on this tour, you know, I’m discovering a lot of new things. And to be 45 and doing that, it’s a mixture of pleasure and pain, I can assure you.

All along this path I tread, my heart betrays my weary head, with nothing but my love to save, from the cradle to the grave.

Yeah, it is, because it’s a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That’s what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.

I can’t play long solos anymore without boring myself.

You were at school and you were pimply and no one wanted to know you. You get into a group and you’ve got thousands of chicks there.

The only planning I do is about a minute before I play. I desperately try to think of something that will be effective, but I never sit down and work it out note for note.

Give me a guitar and I’ll play; give me a stage and I’ll perform; give me an auditorium and I’ll fill it.

Music became a healer for me. And I learned to listen with all my being. I found that it could wipe away all fear and confusion.

Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.

I feel wonderful because I see the love light in your eyes, and the wonder of it all is you just don’t realize how much I love you.

I am, and always will be, a blues guitarist.

My Father’s Eyes’ is very personal. I realized that the closest I ever came to looking in my father’s eyes was when I looked into my son’s eyes.

The first guitar I ever had was a gut-string Spanish guitar, and I couldn’t really get the hang of it. I was only 13, and I talked my grandparents into buying it for me. I tried and tried and tried, but got nowhere with it.

An obsession is where something will not leave your mind.

Like a fool, I fell in love with you, Turned my whole world upside down.

Music became a healer for me.

Not since Cassandra Wilson’s Blue Light Til Dawn has a vocalist cast such an entrancing spell as Valerie Joyce does on New York Blue.

There are only four things in all cleaners – whether it’s shampoo, laundry detergent, whatever.You buy them in bulk and you mix them up properly, and they all work. It doesn’t matter if they call the stuff ecologically friendly or have dolphins diving around on the label.

Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.

When I was born, my father was a copper miner in Butte, Montana. It was a hard-core, blue-collar situation.

Some people would say they never see me because I don’t go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.

A pool of melancholy blooms in my chest and rushes into my body like deep-blue blood.

If your best friend’s feeling tearful, Try not to be too cheerful. Just let her fill your ear full Of sad tales by the score. And when she is through, She’ll feel as good as.

It was the most beautiful evening, with the lake as blue as a cornflower and the sky flecked with rosy clouds. They held their hard-boiled eggs in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other, munching happily.