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

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales. I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton ... oh, there's many more! I wouldn't want to be like them, you understand, but I'd like to be equal, if you will.

I don't think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain't never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

I don't think it's meant for man to know everything at once.

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.

Playing guitar is like telling the truth.