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ON JIMI HENDRIX:
"I loved Jimi a lot. He was so much more than just a blues guitarist. He could do anything. I was about sixteen when he died. I could do some of his stuff by then, but actually I've been trying to find out what he was doing more so lately than I was then. Now I'm really learning how to do it and I'm trying to expand on it...not that I can expand on it a whole bunch. But I try."
"I loved his music and I feel like it's important to hear what he was doing, just like anybody else, just like Albert or B.B....I try to take care of his music and it takes care of me. Treat it with respect, not as a burden - like you have to put a guy down 'cause he plays from it. That's crazy. I respect him for his life and music."
"There's a big lie in this business, that it's okay to go out in flames. But that really doesn't do anybody much good. I may be wrong, but I think Hendrix was trying to come around. I think he had gotten a glimpse of what he needed to change, and that he really wanted to change."
ON DJANGO REINHARDT AND JIMI HENDRIX:
"Django and Jimi were doing the same thing, in a lot of ways. Django would do it with acoustic and Jimi would do it on electric, using feedback and things. Instead of using feedback, Django would just shake those strings like crazy. And neither one had anything to build on...they just did it. Django didn't have any book or anything to borrow from. He wrote the book. Same with Jimi. Nobody was doing those kind of electronic things he was doing. He just did it."
ON ALBERT KING:
"Albert calls me his godson. He'll look at you and talk to you, that's the thing. He's pleased with what we've done, and he explained some simple things: Don't get high when you're working, 'cause you're having too much fun and you don't dee the people fuckin' you around."
ON LONNIE MACK:
"He's something between a daddy and a brother...he's deep, real deep and a warm kind of deep...The way I look at it, we'ew just giving back to him what he did for all of us."
ON BUDDY GUY:
"Thank God Buddy Guy can get as out as he can. Not that he does that all the time - that's not what I mean, Buddy - but nobody can get as out of tune as cool as Buddy Guy."
ON JOHNNY WINTER:
"He said something to me when the first record was doing so well...that people like Muddy Waters and the cats who started it all really had respect for what we're doing because it made people respect them. We're not taking credit for the music. We're trying to give it back."
ON THE BLUESMEN:
"Those guys are the ones who really ought to have the recognition. They're the pioneers and the innovators and they deserve respect for that. all the great records by Albert King, Albert Collins and Otis Rush - they're like the books, in a sense. You can reread them and gain a new insight each time. They never sound the same, to me anyway. There's always something new to learn in each one. So those great bluesmen, they've all been like my
teachers."
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