Maybe someday you can accuse somebody of being a poseur by selling out and playing blues music but that's just not going to happen in my lifetime.

I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life playing clubs if that means I'm playing music that I believe in.

I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself in a sense in the mid 1960s really when I first heard composers like Terry Riley and when I first started playing with tape recorders.

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression whether it was through music or acting or dancing or painting or writing.

No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way definitely.

I think the drummer should sit back there and play some drums and never mind about the tunes. Just get up there and wail behind whoever is sitting up there playing the solo. And this is what is lacking definitely lacking in music today.

The bass no matter what kind of music you're playing it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts but I never noticed.