I think people must wonder how a white girl like me became a blues guitarist. The truth is, I never intended to do this for a living.

There are so many people out there working with great grassroots and global and national organizations that are unsung heroes to me.

I thought I had to live that partying lifestyle in order to be authentic, but in fact if you keep it up too long, all you're going to be is sloppy or dead.

Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.

I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is. At least in my lifetime, there has been a tremendous combining of activism and music, that came up in the era of Pete Seeger and the Weavers and Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary.

I'll close my eyes, so I won't see, all of the love that you don't feel for me.

I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around.