The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.

I guess music particularly the blues is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.

I started playing ukulele first for 2 years from age 9 to 11 and got my first guitar and got inspired by blues I heard on the radio that turned me on and I started learning myself.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college to a school of higher learning.

Blues are the songs of despair but gospel songs are the songs of hope.

I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny but the more hurtin' the music was the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it.

I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel folk and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.

My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player Ted Larsen.

My folks have played everything from rock disco pop funk and blues. My dad has always brought and played different genres like jazz classical and Latin. With all this in my pocket I feel I have a taste of everything for my influences.

Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place which is different than me singing the blues where I can sing 'Oh baby ' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz you better leave that space open or put in something real cool.

I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background which was rock and blues and hip-hop.

My first car was a 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback in red like the one in 'The Blues Brothers.' I painted a Union Jack on the roof. I was absolutely in love with it until I destroyed it which broke my heart!

Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain so much beauty of raw emotion and passion.

Lorne finally said Do the Blues Brothers thing. The response was amazing. People went nuts.

Another thing to do with the blues is how they were recorded. They were done on the quick and some of that stuff was made on wire not even tape let alone digital.