“I ain’t never been no real drinker and I ain’t never smoked a reefer since I been on the face of this earth. I ain’t never used an ounce of dope since I been in this world. I never wanted it…Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Floyd, Moody and all of them, they used to call me a square, Baby Face Leroy, Eddie Taylor, cause I wouldn’t go in the bathroom and smoke that stuff with them. I just never cared for any of that and I don’t care how hard the blues hits, I just didn’t want it. If you make up your mind to survive, you know, you can make it”.

Q: What does the blues mean to you?
A: To me, that’s an inheritance and it’s strictly black peoples inheritance, and what makes that is captivity. That’s why the blues will never die. There’s blues for everybody, but the real blues comes from captivity and being deprived of certain things. You’ll know when you get the blues, don’t nobody have to tell you.

“An astonishing track, Snooky Pryor’s “Boogie” recorded in 1947-48 reveals the note for note opening motif for “Juke” the masterpiece recorded by Little Walter in 1952. We will perhaps never know who developed this classic line”. – Living Blues #167.

“Little Walter took my “Snooky & Moody’s Boogie” and made “Juke” out of it. They say Little Walter wrote it, but he did not. When I made that number Little Walter was still in Louisiana trying to chase his dog to the cemetary”.

From interviews conducted by Mako Funasaka www.talkinblues.com

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