I know that for category purposes, people have to lump certain artists in with genre that they make their name or their bones in. Nobody can tell me that Taj Mahal is pure blues. Nobody can tell me that Mike Bloomfield was pure blues. It was a lot of other things going on as well.

I've worked with a lot of people and I like to play with people when it's fun, and people that I have fun with independent of music, do you know what I mean? Where you can just joke and kid around, because you can joke and kid around with somebody and when you get in the pressure cooker of the studio then you can it's just something.

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.

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.

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

Just immerse yourself in the culture of the music - it will open some doors for you.

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.