"You need to play freely from your heart, and I believe you play the most free when you are making music you love. Let your emotions shape the sound, the phrasing, the melodies, and the riffs and grooves. I think if you have enough chops to express what you feel, and you can put your soul into every lick you play, then that's a music life well lived."

Pete Anderson: Making A Great…

"My hope is that the younger generation will push forward this wonderful form of music and keep it going well into the future and keep the Blues alive."

Big Joe Maher: Let The Rockin' Roll

Joe Maher aka "Big Joe" started out his music career in his Maryland high school jazz band "The Starliners.” Musician greats like Clark Terry, Urbie Green,…

"I put my heart and soul into my music and my performances. It’s an extension of me and all the history that made me what I am. Everyone interprets music in their own way, shaped by their experiences. That’s the beauty of life, it is all intertwined. Follow your dreams."

Willie West: Soul Heart & Blues Soul

Willie West is one of the original…

"Music has always affected the way people live their life, example - in the mining camp days, you would go to the saloon after work, and the piano player would be relating all the news from the last mining camp, it used to be the heart of information as they were the only ones traveling from town to town to spread that information. As far as my music goes, I’d like to bring people together and make them feel and think about things they love and things…

"I am not sure it can and remain the “music industry”. AI applications writing songs? Making melody? I am not sure that is music, certainly not without the most important element of all: a human behind it. Music is live performance - it’s not video, it’s not film, it is human beings working together on stage, without a net, without an algorithm, doing a collaborative process that is imperfect and fraught with danger because it is “in the moment” and goes by…

"I believe the impact of Blues on culture has lessened in recent years, although it is still prevalent. I think the most important impacts are made by the preservation and teaching of the history behind the genre. Learning about what inspired and influenced the pioneers to start this genre, and the social climate at those times."

Pierce Dipner: Goin’ Back To My Roots…

"Music is a vibration that is felt and transmitted on different frequencies. No matter what the music is called by others, it will be recognized by those able to receive the vibrational waves from the medium."

Joe Charitos & Paul Miles: Cool Blues

French musician Joe Charitos and American born Paul Miles (of Swiss-based duo of Joe…

"I think that the Blues continues to generate a devoted following in Europe and around the world for many reasons; because people recognise themselves in the Blues, we hear our own experiences, and we feel the expression as personal and yet shared. As Blues is at the heart of Rock and Roll too and is core to Jazz and so many music genres, I believe that people respond to Blues as something familiar yet perhaps unexplored."…

"The Blues is its own genre. As in Jazz, Rock and Roll, etc. It goes all the way back to the Delta to the present and has developed into the most beautiful musical art form in the world. It's the pallet that is in every genre of music that is out today."

Scott Ellison: Preaching The Blues

Tulsa, Oklahoma native, guitarist and songwriter, Scott…

“It’s the same with anything and everything: follow your heart and don’t expect to please anybody but yourself. They say if you do what you love the money will follow. It worked for me. I’m not rich by any means but I have a good life all considered.”

Charlie Musselwhite:

Blues from the Heart with a Feeling…

"Everybody has the blues at some point in their life. Everybody's blues is different. But blues music can help you deal with life's struggles. It can also be a way to express happiness and joy. Blues music is a celebratory music."

The Cash Box Kings:

A Glorious Celebration Of The Blues…

"African American music in general is made for dancing and sharing feelings, it gives a great feel of empowerment to the listeners as well as the players and this is what we all need! We love the «feel good» messages, we also love how deep and moving it can go too, we love how everybody can rely on this music, how anybody can join in for a jam, how we can all let ourselves go and dance instinctively on this music…"…

"I think that blues music had once a great relevance in alternative music, but today it unfortunately does not attract the attention of great audiences; even among those who listen to alternative music, it often represents a “niche”. My hope for the future is that blues music can recover its leading role in the alternative scene."

The Crowsroads: Blend of Blues Folk…

"The Blues is the seed of music in America. The seed was brought here, planted here, and sprouted here. It grew as jazz, country, rock, rap, R&B. They all came from the same seed and is in every song played, we feel it every time we listen to anything, if we realize it or not."

Weezil Malone: The Rockin'est Little Band

Guitarist and…

"The Blues is an artform that’s continually evolving, and all change is inevitable despite being primarily three chords and a one-four-five scale. I’m all for innovation. But what I regret most is that the great majority of young players today lack the basic understanding that the space between notes is just as important as the notes themselves."

Marty Gunther: I'll Write The Blues For…

"That music lives in your soul, the vibrations can heal, inspire and make you a new person. It can take you on journeys, build dreams, show you the path of life. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever known is music."

Johnny Wheels: Swamp Blues Rock Music

New album titled Keep On Pushin’ (2022), from Johnny Wheels & The Swamp Donkeys, is a…

"The Blues is like "cachaça" as we say and we like it a lot around here. I don't know exactly and I can't say for others but the Blues has something that captivates people. Maybe it's the mojo, the repetition of phrases in a verse, the identification with the stories, or the search for that story, the rhythm of the train that resembles the rhythm from the heart, the truth of each artist in the form of a song."…

"Within the reality of our society everything is consumed by the commodification machine. I’m not sure that art or music can stop that by itself. I think that art carries truth, and that truth is sometimes not the same as the existing realities served by systems. It can make people contact the Real, and this is all it can do."

George Gaudy: Human Experience…

"My belief is a musician should be as proficient on their instrument as the music they want to create so the emotions can flow through the musician without the restrictions of the body and mind."

John "Papa" Gros: The Sound of NOLA

New Orleans has its fair share of musical ambassadors; but few are more rooted in the cracked sidewalks…