I don't like anybody to be angry with me. I'd rather have friends.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you're going to the bank to borrow money.

When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

Kenny Burrell is overall the greatest guitarist in the world and he's my favorite.

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go on the stage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience.

I'm self-taught. But I finally learned that they was having little shows or night dances or whatever you call them at little juke joints not far from where I lived, and I used to go there. They wouldn't let me play inside, but I could sit outside on the weekends, when it wasn't raining or something.

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra's. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.