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: “I remember speaking with Charles Mingus once and he really pointed you out as being somebody who knew what the blues was, because I remember him on the program sitting right where you’re sitting about five or six years ago – almost firing his band as he sat here getting more and more angry that these young guys didn’t know the blues! He said ‘there are like seven hundred different kinds of blues. There are sad blues, happy blues, every kind!’.”

A: Jimmy Witherspoon: “And Mingus, by the way, he and I, we used to work together. You know he’s from Los Angeles.”

Interviewer: “That’s right, yeah.”

Jimmy Witherspoon: “And we all used to work together at Benny Berries. He and I and the people talk about him walking off in later years if you play the wrong chords. He’s done that all his life. It wasn't nothing he did because he got to be a name. Mingus has always felt when you play it wrong, it's sad and that’s his prerogative. I feel I love him. But this has been an advantage to me, what Mingus and what other musicians has said, top musicians, like Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie calls me as his band singer. I worked with Count Basie and his band. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be with the Count Basie All-Stars the whole month of July with Clark Taylor as the leader. And I’m looking forward to that, like the new vice-president of the United States, really. I’m looking forward to that.”