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I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

I was reared on folk music.

In high school, I got into folk music, and I taught myself guitar. And when The Beatles came out, I got an electric guitar.

My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe.

I just loved the guitar when it came along. I loved it. The banjo was something I really liked, but when the guitar came along, to me that was my first love in music.

I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.

My dad also plays a little banjo and guitar, my mom plays the mandolin.

I don't think of myself as a folk singer per se, but I really like blues and string-band music. When I started listening to records when I was a teenager, the folk boom was going on.