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.
Interpretation
Blues music is often misunderstood; it doesn't always have to convey sadness, but must be rooted in truth.
Willie Dixon's quote serves as a critique of the common perception of blues music, which suggests that it must necessarily be gloomy or sorrowful. Instead, Dixon emphasizes that the essence of blues lies in its authenticity and truthfulness, indicating that moments of joy or life experiences can also contribute to the genre, thereby expanding its emotional range beyond just sorrow.
In practice
During a music appreciation class, when discussing the evolution of blues music.
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 has been the foundation of all other American music since the beginning.
The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.
The major rock instruments and classical instruments were designed for performance, for sharing the music with an audience, and then later people put microphones on them and recorded them. But for electronic music, the opposite was true - they're designed in laboratories, and later, we tried to put them on stage.
The way I see it, rock n' roll is folk music.
The great thing about the Wilburys was that none of us had to take the heat by ourselves. I was just a member of the band. Nobody felt like he was above anybody else. We had such a good time.
I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn't want to go on!
I have been accused of being a very simplistic, very lyrical player, and that's okay. That just comes from the blues, which is my background. But every day you wake up and transcend. You can't ever rest on your laurels.
I've always liked depressing music because a lot of times, listening to it when you're down can actually make you feel less depressed. Also, even though a person may have problems with depression, sometimes you can actually be kind of comfortable in that space because you know how to operate within it.
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