10/21/2025
Bobby Blue Bland : If you’re comfortable on stage, then your time is almost up. You have to have some kind of nervousness, some kind of fear, because you don’t know how the public’s going to accept you. That’s my thinking. You try to keep a straight face like you’re a pro, but getting up in front of people is a big job.
It was hard, on the east coast or whatever, because they didn’t want to identify with the blues, especially in New York. But I think I went there in ’63 at the Apollo Theater, and I had a little shaky time there for a minute, then I finally won the big city over. That was a big plus for me.
Blues took a long time to get identified, and it’s not a good subject to a lot of people. They call it old folks’ music, and it’s a downer to the teenagers, because they haven’t had any problems. But a young boy told me one day — I think it was in St. Louis — he said ‘You know what, I’m 21 years old, and I’ve got every record [of yours]. He said ‘I’m young but I understand what you’re saying.’
When I got a chance, I used to listen to it, but my mother and my grandmother didn’t like any of that blues, not in the house. I used to try to be a mechanic, my old man was a mechanic, but it was a little too greasy. I used to be with my grandmother in the kitchen while she was cooking, she’d be singing some hymns, and they sounded so good. She could paint a picture with a hymn that you wouldn’t believe, man. That’s really where I got my gift, from listening to her and my mother.
Photo : Bobby Blue Bland by Sylvia Pitcher
