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It was my love for the guitar that first got me into music and singing.

I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.

I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.

I loved playing the guitar and I knew I was pretty good at it, so that's what I wanted to do with my life.

It took me way beyond what I knew, into places of which I was totally scared, but as I became less frightened, I welcomed new ways of thinking and approaching something. It made me an infinitely richer person, and I think a better musician.

And, so, when I picked up the guitar, suddenly, just playing a couple of notes really, really spoke to me. It was almost like I should have been doing it prior to that. You know, it was something that just felt really natural.

I had my guitar and some talent so that I could make friends with intelligent people and could talk my way out of difficult situations.

It was also important for me to have a burning desire to achieve something worthwhile on that instrument, and I devoted many many many hours with little or no compensation to perfecting whatever I could, because I loved it so much.

I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.

I think I knew I was going to be a musician for the rest of my life kind of early. When I was in third grade, I was playing in a talent show, and my dad wrote a two- or three-minute boogie-woogie piece. I played it, everybody loved it, and I was like, 'Wow, this is great.'