We blues singers are condemned. But I let them know this: If what I'm singing sends me to hell, I don't know how to get to heaven because I ain't lying. It's in your heart, and it's what you feel.

It's been good to me, and I had no desire to change. It's been lower than the dirt on the ground, but it bounced back, and it's going to keep doing it because it's original. It's the only music that was born in America. Everybody else brought theirs with them.

If somebody sings, 'Baby I'll fly to the moon for you, I'll bring the stars down,' that's a damn lie. I sing about the events of the world as it's going today. It's more like gospel than anything else.

I hate to see him die that way. It didn't have to happen that way.