"Music teaches people how to express their feelings when words are not enough. My musical path and career have taught me and is still teaching me how to interact and deal with other musicians and other people in life. The most important lesson that I’ve earned from my experience in music though is to stay true in what I want to be."

Dennis Pol: Guitarology…

"The connections between music and culture and how it leads us to see how diverse people in the world can be. As a blues researcher, Ethnomusicology was great to make me see what my place as a Brazilian musician is that plays a musical style that was born in a different country, in a different century, in a very different society. It was important on helping me to see what the blues became in the world and how it arrives in Brazil and deals with the local…

"I love traditional blues of the past. I wish we had some better recordings of some of the early artists. They were filled with authenticity and great storytelling. I think blues is in the heart and soul so I don’t fear the evolution of the genre as long as everyone keeps it real."

Sandy Haley: Feels Like Freedom

Southern California-based blues…

"Music is a very healing art-form. If my music offers any solace to someone that might be having a hard time, then my job is done."

Harvey Valdes: Novare

Guitar Virtuoso Harvey Valdes’ Novare: J.S. Bach Lute Works on Electric Guitar – to be released by Destiny Records on April 8, 2022 – features sublime scores long performed by the world’s…

"Απλώς ελπίζω, ότι μπορούμε να κάνουμε ένα βήμα τη φορά, να το παίρνουμε μια μέρα τη φορά και να γίνουμε καλύτεροι. Δε μου αρέσει να έχω να κάνω με το φόβο, δε σκέφτομαι έτσι. Δε μπορείς να σκέφτεσαι το φόβο, να σκέφτεσαι μ’ αυτούς τους όρους. Είναι αδύνατον να σκέφτεσαι έτσι. Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα, ελπίζω ότι όλοι μπορούμε να κάνουμε καλύτερες επιλογές. Γιατί πραγματικά είναι πάνω μας."…

"It is striking to discover how close Music is to us at all times. All it takes is a willingness to listen. To embrace the sound of listening. It is easy to forget, but I am luckily reminded again and again. To quote Robert Fripp, “Music is a benevolent presence constantly and readily available to all.” "

Alex Anthony Faide: Echo of the…

"The elimination of the sacred has affected everything. Music has suffered accordingly. The State has become the new god with technology as the tool for achieving its aims. The result of this is the relativisation of all music. Music has been ripped from its traditional functional roots."

Andrew Keeling: English Music Landscape…

"Music that is well conceived should transport people from their daily routine for three minutes. It should make them remember a feeling, a time in their lives. Good music be it from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s etc. should create trends like Big Bands, Doo Wop, The Disco era, Jazz, Be Bop, Rockabilly, it should make people want to gather and listen."

Charlie Taylor: Same River…

"In a perfect world, it would be more equitable, but that’s a pipe dream. Like all things in the entertainment world, it’s a “pyramid”; the few at the top make all of the money, and those at the bottom make crumbs. I realize that the ones at the top are generating most of the money, and therefore reap the most benefits. I am grateful for the living I am able to sustain, whether from music, or any of the numerous odd jobs that I’ve…

"Music should always be a focal point in bringing people and communities together. Music is the one universal language that everyone speaks."

Mike Guldin: Good Ole Butt-Shakin’ Music!

Mike Guldin first picked up the guitar at age 15 and since then has honed his craft playing in roadhouses, clubs and bars, and Festivals and Theaters for over 45…

"I miss spontaneity, the most. I don't like all this polished and well-rounded, super-edited and highly commercial sound, and generally I tend to dislike or, to not prefer, virtuosos, or let's put it in other words, show-offs. I cannot see this changing, as we enter a more digitalized era with so much technology, but still hope for a difference! I also dislike tags, when people put tags on musicians and expect them to be a certain way, and criticize them…

"Most of the lessons I learned when teaching children were joyful. For instance, I learned that every youngster could be motivated to play well enough to enjoy ensemble or choral work at a basic level. I also learned that gracious parents and brilliant colleagues could guarantee such results. There was one lesson that was not so joyful. Music education was starting to be considered…

"Western music is one of the few music’s that have been used for secular purposes. In most cultures it is religious. So, I think it’s important that it not only reflects the times but appeals to the human condition. That it offers hope and upliftment to the human spirit. It can be instrumental (for example Coltrane's music was deeply spiritual and uplifting), or with words. Music can be bleak and depressing, which also portrays a state of mind and lays it…

"Blues music is an existential music. It comes from the unfathomable pain that lies within the Afro-American’s experience, the agony of despair behind slavery and racism, as well as the experience of rejection because of the color of one’s skin. It remains that we all have the blues in some form or another. We all are trying to make sense of what it means to be alive. Most of us will experience aloneness, and physical or spiritual…

"Blues started as a racial and socio-cultural protest but with time, it has evolved, and we all live the Blues in our lives one way or another. We all have struggle and we all experience pain, so I believe it’s safe to say the we all have the Blues whether we know it or not."

Jose Ramirez: Major League Blues

At 34 years old, blues…