"I'm a very private person. What I did in the past or what somebody heard me do or has a bootleg of me doing...well, if you have a bootleg, then I did it." - Mark Lanegan
"People have learned how to strum a guitar, but they don't have the soul. They don't feel it from the heart. It hurts me. I'm killin' myself to tell them how it is." - Sam 'Lightnin' Hopkins, born this day in 1912.
"The earth moves in a certain rhythm, a certain sound, a certain note. When the music stops, the earth will stop and everything upon it will die. The world is in such a bad condition that if they don't find what you call a redeemer, every man, woman and child on this planet will be eliminated." - Sun Ra
"To be spiritual is not by praying and going to church. Spiritualism is the understanding of the universe so that it can be a better place to live in." - Fela Kuti
"Today, rather than talk in terms of ideology or ideas like socialism, I think more important issues to discuss are things like compassion and accountability. Freedom is merely privilege extended, unless enjoyed by one and all." - Billy Bragg
"I have found people on both sides of the aisle, white and black, that'll give you the shirt off their back. And I've also found people that won't give you a piece of bread if you're starving to death." - Al Green
"Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play." - Nina Simone. born this day in 1933.