Happy 85th birthday Willie Nelson!

My doctor tells me I should start slowing it down – but there are more old drunks than there are old doctors so let’s all have another round.
~Willie Nelson

We create our own unhappiness. The purpose of suffering is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it.
~Willie Nelson

He [Willie Nelson] takes whatever thing he’s singing and makes it his. There’s not many people who can do that. Even something like an Elvis tune. You know, once Elvis done a tune, it’s pretty much done. But Willie is the only one in my recollection that has even taken something associated with Elvis and made it his. He just puts his sorta trip on it…
~Bob Dylan (28 April 1993)

Bob+Dylan Willie+Nelson

Willie Nelson Induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1993):

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April 1: The legend Ronnie Lane was born in 1946

As the former bassist for the Small Faces, and later the Faces, Ronnie Lane left both bands when he felt the spirit of the group had died, gaining him the reputation of an uncompromising artist, and allowing him the opportunity to release some fine solo material in the ’70s.
~Steve Kurutz (allmusic.com)

Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones Talk The Faces on Hall of Fame Induction:

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March 25: Aretha Franklin was born in 1942 – Happy 76th birthday!

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.
~Aretha Franklin

I Say A Little Prayer – “The Cliff Richard Show” 1970:

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March 8: Mississippi John Hurt was born in 1892

Photo: Rowland Scherman

“The Blues ain’t nothin’ but a good woman on your mind.”
~Mississippi John Hurt

No blues singer ever presented a more gentle, genial image than Mississippi John Hurt. A guitarist with an extraordinarily lyrical and refined fingerpicking style, he also sang with a warmth unique in the field of blues, and the gospel influence in his music gave it a depth and reflective quality unusual in the field.
~Bruce Eder (allmusic.com)

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March 7: The late Townes Van Zandt was born in 1944

“I’m trying to define the relationship between man and the universe,….. often it’s between man and man, or man and woman, or man and the cosmos. Whatever song comes through the door I’m happy with.… I’m lucky just to play the guitar and sing.”
~TVZ (on the purpose behind his songwriting)

“Figures like Townes Van Zandt remind us that the wandering bard, that American archetype, is still very much with us—and his music will live long after the voices that declare it in or out of fashion have been stilled or forgotten.”
~Robert Palmer (New York Times/Deep Blues/++)

“I lived in Fort Worth till I was 8, Midland till 9, Billings, Montana, till 12, Boulder, Colorado till 14, Chicago till 15 … Houston till I was 21. And then I started traveling.”
~TVZ (to Contemporary Musicians (CM) in 1992)

If I Needed You:

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March 1: Happy Birthday Roger Daltrey

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I can’t retire.
~Roger Daltrey

First of all, you have to understand that I’m like anybody else. When I hear my voice on a record I absolutely loathe my voice. I cannot stand my voice.
~Roger Daltrey

He almost invented the pseudo-messianic role taken up later by Jim Morrison and Robert Plant.
~Pete Townshend

Roger Daltrey tribute:

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