... by far the most astonishing guitar player ever has got to be Django Reinhardt ... Django was quite superhuman, There's nothing normal about him as a person or a player.

A lot of solos I hear sound so incredible, but they sound like somebody practicing. They sound a bit soulless - fiery, but at the same time, lacking in spirit and soul.

When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent's disapproval.

The Strat covers the complete spectrum of human emotion .. the tremolo enables you to do anything - you can hit any note known to mankind

I never really felt at home with that - the headbands, the roses, the feet, the peace sign, all that bollocks. That wasn't me at all; I felt like a fish totally out of water during the mid-'60s thing.

There was mass hysteria in the Chess Recording Studio when I did the "Shapes of Things" solo ... they weren't expecting it, and it was just some weird mist coming from the East out of an amp.

Some are skeptical. My mom thought the guitar was going to fizzle out in two weeks, that it was just a fad-and that was in 1958.