“Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It’s the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.”

I mainly use Stratocasters. I like a lot of different kinds of guitars, but for what I do, it seems that a Stratocaster is the most versatile. I can pretty much get any sound out of it, and I use stock pickups.

My baby she’s a long and lean, you mess with her you see a man get mean.

Jazz changes and all. But I don’t know the names of what it is I’m doing.

I play as many different things – piano, sax and harp parts – as I can at once. Whatever I can fit, whenever I need to.

But between sets I’d sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.

I love my baby like the finest wine, I’ll stick with her until the end of time.

The way I play, I go through a set in a year. So I put ’58 Gibson Jumbo Bass frets on all my necks.

You know, there’s a big lie in this business. The lie is that it’s okay to go out in flames. But that doesn’t do anybody much good. I may be wrong, but I think Hendrix was trying to come around.

So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I’d try it too.

You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other – our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That’s to help each other, not hurt each other.

I hit rock bottom, but thank God my bottom wasn’t death.

Music really is a way to reach out and hold on to each other in a healthy way.

I’ve put my life back together, but it’s all a growing process and that’s neat, too, because if you stop growing, what good is it musically? So that is what I am looking forward to – growing. In some ways, I felt stagnant in my life and it showed.

Even though there’s reasons to try things that may or may not work, it’s still a real intimate way to finish the song with everybody right there in the band just locked in.

I actually wanted to be a drummer, but I didn’t have any drums.

The whole deal is when you walk onstage, you’re up there bigger than life. People idolize you.

When I was around 7 or 8 my Dad took me to a B.B. King recording session, well, that really did it. Huge and lasting impressions.

I definitely have a different perspective on music in general. But once I actually have a guitar in my hands, I think I disappear into the same black hole that I was disappearing into when I was 15.

I enjoy the song writing process more than anything. It’s what I like the most, just sitting in my room with guitar or at the piano or something.

Yes, we three were so happy, my wife, my guitar and me!

I don’t read music; I taught myself guitar.

I get a feeling, on a guitar, and I sort of mess around until something resonates with me, and then I just find that what happens is that a melody comes, and with that, words.

I suppose I am proud of what has gone on, after all I only ever wanted to play the guitar for a living, and that is what I am still doing.

I’d always had an interest in guitar from about seven years old. But I first actually had lessons when I was about fifteen in Scotland, in Edinburgh.