People ask me all the time, “What inspired you to start playing the blues?” So let’s clear something up. My understanding of “the blues” is different than what a lot of people think. I came up understanding blues as any time a Black person put their voice to a record. Didn’t matter if it was gospel, rhythm and blues, even hip-hop—if it was recorded, it got thrown in the same bucket. Back then, in the record store, they called it blues or race music. That was just the one label for all recorded Black music.
Now, over time, they’ve sliced it up into a dozen categories—like gospel here, R&B there, jazz over here—but to me, it’s all still got blues in it somewhere. So, with that in mind, what inspired me to play the blues? Hell, I wouldn’t know how to answer that if I tried. Blues is just in the air I grew up breathing.
See, when I was young, what was playing around me wasn’t even called blues—it was Motown, it was Stax, it was that rhythm and blues groove with bigger bands and electrified sounds. But all those horns and amps and beats? That was blues at the core, dressed up in a new suit. And let’s be real: just about every sound that came after that traces back to blues in some way. Ask the Rolling Stones. Ask Elvis. Hell, ask yourself.
So it’s not like something inspired me to play it; it’s more like, I didn’t have a choice. It’s what I do. Asking me why I play the blues is like asking a dog why it barks or a bird why it flies. They just do it. Same with me and the blues. And that’s why some folks struggle with it—they’re trying to learn something that comes from deep inside, something you don’t learn in classes or books. For me, it’s a natural thing, a piece of my soul that I’m just willing to share with the world. Call it blues if you want to.
So here’s a question for you: Why do you play the blues? Or why don’t you?