young, right? When did you get into music? Yeah, well, my mother and my brother were both musicians, you know. My mother came from Kentucky so she had a lot of country and bluegrass background and my brother was into more current stuff when I was young - 60s and 70s stuff, you know, like Beatles and Hendrix and that kind of stuff, so I kinda got both sides of the fence from them which I’m glad about because it gives you a lot of versa- tility when you hear different styles. We sang as a family a lot around the house and then we had a family band at one time, and then my aunt gave me a copy of the B.B. King album, Live at Cook County Jail when I was pretty young. That was the, you know, my first introduction to real blues besides listen- ing to stuff that was amplified blues like Hen- drix did and stuff like that.
You know, it’s so funny, I hear that from so many musicians about that Cook County Jail album. When I got that record it kind of changed my life too. I mean, I’m nowhere near the level of guitar player you are, but it sort of impacted me. I was like, “Man, this guy is so great and he doesn’t even have to play chords.” (Laughs) I like that. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I mean, it was simple music that you can pick up on when you’re a kid. It’s not as complicated as some of the rock stuff I was listening to. I mean, you can’t necessarily capture the feel - which was what it’s all about -when you’re a kid. But you can start copying some of the licks and stuff be- cause they’re not that complicated. So, that’s always fun when you’re young and can con- quer something or think you did anyway. That. And then my brother also gave me a copy of that John Mayall album with Eric Clapton on it, which I guess a lot of guys my age probably had that album too and stole
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some stuff off there. I think the first lead that I ever did was based on that. My brother was playing lead and I was playing rhythm when I was real young, and then I learned the lead to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” When he heard me play that he just looked at me and said, “Man, I guess you’re the lead player now and I’m the rhythm.” (Both laugh) Because he couldn’t do it so… But yeah, I kind of grew up around these musical people in my family, so that really helped.
How’d you go about learning your leads? Did you learn them off of an LP or something? Yeah. Just like a lot of people.
Were you the guy that kept putting the needle back and going over it time and again like I did? Yeah.
I did that. I did that when I was young with “Jessica,” and I remember I spent a whole Saturday doing that. I like to ask people if they can just do it natu- rally, if you could just listen to some- thing naturally and play it. Unlike me. I have to practice and practice. Well, you know, I could. There’s some things that I could pick up on like that and then other things - I think we had a 16 speed on our phonograph, and so I could slow stuff down. I didn’t have to put a toe on the record like Duane Allman said he did, you know. (both laugh) So yeah, I could pick up some of it by ear but some of it would just go by so quickly I’d put it on a slower speed. But I was pretty good, well, I thought I was pretty good at picking up stuff. When I go back and listen to some of the things I learned like “Little Wing,” I kind of chuckle to myself when I see someone who really knows how to play it. I didn’t play it like that when I was, you know,
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