I have a full life off the road. I was never in it just for the money or the career. That's why I'm comfortable with myself. I know who I am out of the spotlight.
If you're performing for the right reasons, it's glorious.
Sometimes I think I know everything, but I also underestimate what God really is.
What are you gonna fill your life up with when you don't have that ultimate satisfaction or peace in your life? You try to fill it up with wealth, pleasure, honor, power, sex, drugs and Rock and Roll to try to feel good.
I think one of the greatest compliments I've ever received was when a young kid came backstage at Joe's Pub, when I had the "Bronx In Blue" album out. He said, "What Jimmy Reed did for you, you do for me."
Back when I was in high school, I came out onstage with my guitar and had four guys playing behind me. We were just playing a dance, but I was standing in front of an audience rocking out. I'm still rocking out like when I was a kid. I haven't changed.
A lot of blues music seems like it's moving away from God, or the center, and Gospel music is moving towards it. It's embracing a higher reality. When you look a little closer, the way that I define it or explain it, is that the blues is the naked cry of the human heart, apart from God. People are searching for union with God. They're searching to be home. There's something in people that seeks this union with their creator. Why am I here? Where am I going? What's it all about? Who am I? All this kind of stuff.
When you have too many beers, you become like a control freak on everything.
A lot of people have many misconceptions about religion. I know what I'm talking about for myself. My mind is very ordered, so to speak. I need to put things in order.
I was guaranteed a hundred thousand dollars a year for five years, which was big money in the early 60's. You think, acquiring that should cool you out, but for me it wasn't true.
