There's one more thing I want to say. It's a touchy subject. Black beauty. Black sensuality. We live in a culture where the beauty of black people isn't always as celebrated as other types. I'd like to help change that if I can!
There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.
This nation has always struggled with how it was going to deal with poor people and people of color. Every few years you will see some great change in the way that they approach this. We've had the war on poverty that never really got into waging a real war on poverty.
To me, flying free is doing what I want to do, even if it's different from what everybody expects me to do. I'm flying free when I win the battle between me and the people who thought I should go down this road and I find my own road.
I think that our primary concern is that the membership in our industry become active. I'm not talking about the candidates being active. I'm talking about the few hundred thousand people who work in the industry around the United States.
