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.

There's a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There's also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess - she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived I probably wouldn't be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.

Notes are expensive... spend them wisely

There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven't yet done.

No one can take it away from you.