Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed..

A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His fac….

The name of my ailment was longing, and it was not cured till I finally went to the department store and counted out the money in small coins before ….

Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as….

If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in….

With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds..

Nature was my kindergarten..

In the South of long ago whenever a new man appeared for work in any of the laborers gangs, he would be asked if he could sing. If he could he got th….

Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it..

Sometimes I feel like nothin,' somethin' throwed away, Somethin' throwed away. And then I get my guitar, play the blues all day..

My big ears indicated a talent for music. This thrilled me..

Where the Tennessee River, like a silver snake, winds her way through the clay hills of Alabama, sits high on these hills, my home town, Florence..

I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro..

I knew the whistle of each of the river boats on the Tennessee..

Saving was slow and painful..

You'll never miss the water 'til the well runs dry..

The blues - the sound of a sinner on revival day..

You can never tell what's in a woman's mind, And if she's from Harlem, there's no use o' tryin.

I hate to see the evening sun go down..

You've got to appreciate the things that come from the art of the Negro and from the heart of the man farthest down..