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.

The early years when I was starting, blues player, you wasn't always welcome in a lot of the other places. People usually have preconceived ideas about blues music. They always feel that it's depressing and that it's just something that a guy sit out on a stool, grab a guitar, and just start singing or mumbling or whatever.

Sometimes the proprietors of the little juke joints gave me a couple dollars. I loved that. I'd go back next Saturday.

Being a blues singer is like being black two times.

I'm no good with chords. I'm horrible with chords.

There was a lot of other young players around at that time when I was coming, but there was older people like Blind Lemon, which was one of my favorites. I don't know, just seemed like everybody I heard could play better than me.

And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.