I've found that since I've been playing the acoustic, listening to a horn player has left me thinking, well, what can I do with that? But somehow piano players, I feel more of a connection to , now that I'm using the acoustic.

With Fred McDowell, I just love the way he articulates the notes. I'm hardly unique in that, but there's just something about that that I love.

It's hard to go out in front of people with an acoustic guitar and improvise for 30 or 40 minutes, but I had a compulsion to do it. I just had to in a way that I can't really explain.

I'm uptight in general, and it's hard for me to play in a situation where I'm not rehearsed or I feel like I'm not prepared. So it's always hard for me to come away from those and think it was the best thing I could do.

I definitely have a different perspective on music in general. But once I actually have a guitar in my hands, I think I disappear into the same black hole that I was disappearing into when I was 15.

I had a guitar sitting around, and it just happened to have four strings on it, and I would sit around watching TV and playing it. I ended up writing bunches of songs around four strings.

I had opportunities to play with other people and give my self some sort of security, but for some reason I wanted to play solo and just put it out there.