Jimmy Witherspoon discusses the influences of a blues artist.

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Jimmy Witherspoon discusses the nuances of the blues genre.

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Jimmy Witherspoon discusses his own blues influences.

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Q: “Thad Jones was telling me one time that the greatest gift to jazz was the Ford Motor company – everybody in Detroit ended up being a musician because you didn’t want to work in the Ford plant. Same kind of thing with you but at the same time it must have given you the background because you’ve got to have lived to sing the blues. It’s a pure fact, isn’t it?”

A: “Well, I don’t know, but you have to live, but not hard. That’s a myth but you have to … the word is so loosely used. You've paid your dues and all that. Everybody in any field pays dues for success, whether he’s a banker, lawyer, whatever. So I think it has really been misused by entertainers and musicians. And we all complain a lot and yet we only work three or four hours out of twenty-four. We have the fringe benefits, new people, new surroundings, travel first class, meet first-class people. So it’s a lot of benefits we get. A lot of entertainers don’t realize it and I’m grateful, believe me.”