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I tried the guitar, but it had two strings too many. It was just too complicated, man! Plus, I grew up with Steve Cropper. There were so many good guitar players, another one wasn't needed. What was needed was a bass.

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.

I started playing the guitar when I was 14. I'm not superstitious about guitars, but I do need strings to be old because that's part of my sound, and I don't like steel strings.

My first guitar was like a campfire guitar. And it was left at a house that my family had moved into... and the guitar was at the house. It was all strung up. It's normally something that would be beyond a bit of rubbish.

One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty.

The first 12-string guitar I bought was probably around 1957.

A guitar for me is pretty much strictly in the context of writing songs for my band, coming up with ideas with my band, and then being able to perform those songs as best as I can on stage - that's what the guitar for me has always been.

I started playing bluegrass with my family, so there were the G, C and D chords. I was playing a Martin acoustic because that's what Carter Stanley of the Stanley Brothers played. Then I got into the really raw blues of Hound Dog Taylor and started on electric guitar.

I'd always loved strings. When I was in high school and saw strings playing on stage, an orchestra or a symphony, all those bows moving at the same time... wow.

When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn't go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.