Mick, on the making of ‘Blue & Lonesome’ (2016):
“It was an exercise in sprezzatura. You’ve got to concentrate, but it can’t sound like it’s difficult. And it doesn’t… It’s not like rock music or programmed drum music. It pulsates in a very weird way, where each bar is different. And that’s what’s interesting about this kind of music when it’s played properly. It has a swerve, and it has a dynamism about it. I just looked back at the original records, and we wanted some of these moods. Every track is different. We all thought it was going to be easy but it wasn’t. Sounds have changed. What makes you excited now is not the same. In music, everything’s different…

…But the blues still have something about them that’s really good. I love all kinds of music, and I still listen to the blues. This album is a homage to our favourite musicians, people who kicked us off in playing music. That was the reason we started a band. For my generation it’s the equivalent of suburban white kids doing rap. It’s so culturally far away from your own experience. We were proselytisers of blues music. In the end that’s what we’re still doing.”

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(Ref. blue and lonesome)