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.

Distribution has really changed. You can make a record with a laptop in the morning and have it up on YouTube in the afternoon and be a star overnight. The talent on YouTube is incredible, and it can spread like wildfire. The downside is that it's very hard to convince the younger generation that they should pay for music.

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind.

I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography.

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

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.

With slide guitar, you're just hanging this piece of glass on your hand. It's a really beautiful instrument in that it's so responsive, you're just slipping your hand back and forth.