And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer it.

I always read all these books about the slaves. My mother is very educated. My father would talk to us like we were grown men. We never knew what he was talking about half the time.

Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician

It's our job to just do as much as we can to enlighten the people about it and to represent it by playing it with some integrity. That's what I try to do.

Even if nobody's singing, just when you talk, you're singing. I'll meet somebody and say, "Oh, I'm tone-deaf." I say, "You're not tone-deaf, because if you were tone-deaf you would speak like that. But you're 'Oh, I'm tone-deaf.' You already sang a song to me."

If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying.

Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.