My family was into music. My dad was into music down south. My mom and grandmother were into gospel music so there were all types. That was my inspiration.

Don't try to be someone else. Be yourself.

Nowadays blues in particular has a wide, wide, wide, wide net of everything that's called blues. I think if somebody's coming to it in the last ten years or whatever, or even fifteen years, what their experience is what is called blues is different from mine. I have to expand my range of what's been called the blues. I think somebody who's new to it would have to go back and to see what is called blues now, where it came from. If that makes sense.

Some of the best advice I was given was that me doing a bad version of me is better than me doing a good version of someone else.

At the school where I went you were able to check out instruments like you check out a library book, if your parents signed for you and vouched for you. Then after you had it for a little while you could decide if you were interested in taking lessons or you could also get your own gear. Or you could turn that instrument in for another one and try something else. So that's how I got my hands on the guitar.

I like to say that I had a really good musical education because it was inclusive of all styles of music and I like it like that.

When you are sitting in a room and somebody does something or says something and a thought comes, an idea or a melody - you have to just grab it while it's there because it will go away.