People have been brainwashed into believing that it's got to be down or it wouldn't be blues. But it's not so. It's got to be a fact or it wouldn't be blues.
Willie DixonRead
The blues has been the foundation of all other American music since the beginning.
Interpretation
The blues genre has significantly influenced all forms of American music since its inception.
Willie Dixon's statement underscores the profound impact of the blues on the development of various American music styles. It highlights how the emotional depth and unique rhythms of blues have laid the groundwork for genres such as rock, jazz, and R&B, demonstrating its essential role in the evolution of American music as a whole.
In practice
During a music seminar, to emphasize the roots of modern genres.
People have been brainwashed into believing that it's got to be down or it wouldn't be blues. But it's not so. It's got to be a fact or it wouldn't be blues.
The whole of life itself expresses the blues. That's why I always say the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding. The blues can be about anything pertaining to the facts of life. The blues call on God as much as a spiritual song do.
The blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits.
The blues will always be because the blues are the roots of all American music.
The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.
If you wanna make money in music, you're better off being on the business end of it a lot of the time. And also as a musician, if you do make money, it means you had to bite and scratch and kick the whole way to not get ripped off, because at every corner, there's somebody there waiting to trip you up and take a bigger chunk.
I remember when I thought of singing as the bit that went between the guitar playing - something I couldn't wait to get out of the way. Singing was originally like a chore that I didn't really enjoy.
With the a cappella groups, every voice is like one string on a guitar, one note on the piano, or one cymbal, and you don't have the luxury of falling back on anything.
I think the problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, 'Rap is a young man's game,' and they keep trying to make young songs. But you don't know the slang - it changes every day, and you're just visiting. So you're trying to be something you're not, and the audience doesn't buy into that.
I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about Black music, about soul music.
Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
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