When I look out at the people and they look at me and they're smiling, then I know that I'm loved. That is the time when I have no worries, no proble….

I want a Sunday kind of love A love to last past Saturday night And I’d like to know it’s more than love at first sight.

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that ….

My mother always told me, even if a song has been done a thousand times, you can still bring something of your own to it. I'd like to think I did tha….

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect t….

I’ve learned to live with rage. In some ways, it’s my rage that keeps me going. Without it, I would have been whipped long ago. With it, I got a lot ….

That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me th….

People that can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies..

I am so happy that I am alive and can walk..

See, I don't like places where people can't dance - don't like clubs or theatres where a bunch of bourgeois people sit around tip, tip, tipping their….

At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song..

When I sing for myself, I probably sing for anyone who has any kind of hurt, any kind of bad feelings, good feelings, ups and downs, highs and lows, ….

A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to lis….

You know the one with the big ears? Wait a minute, he ain't my president, he might be yours, he ain't my president. You know that woman he had singin….

The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul..

I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I'm the happiest I've ever been..

The two things you can't fake are good food and good music.

What happens is, when I perform, I'm somewhere else. I go back in time and get in touch with who I really am. I forget my troubles, my worries..

It feels so good to be happy..

In some ways, it's my rage that keeps me going..

The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage..