"The great Blues guitarists are gifted with an acute sensitivity to the
finest nuances of pitch, the subtlest differences in the attack and tone
and decay of every note. In most cases, they learned when they were
children to listen carefully, to size up a stranger in a few seconds by
the timbre and inflection of his voice. And they play the guitar the way
they listen, with an ear for the minutest details of phrasing and touch
and meaning. They are great guitarists not because they can play more
notes per minute than lesser musicians or because of their ability to
fashion fancy, flashing phrases, but because they have a surer command
of the Blues language."
Robert Palmer writing about Otis Rush, with big
thanks to Libi for the bringing me the book "Blues and Chaos, the writings of
Robert Palmer"