Lonnie was ahead of his time, but at the same time he was right in there with Albert Collins's Cool Sounds.
The problem with taking amps to a shop is that they come back sounding like another amp.
So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I'd try it too.
I kept listening, kept going to see people, kept sitting in with people, kept listening to records. If I wanted to learn somebody's stuff, like with Clapton, when I wanted to learn how he was getting some of his sounds - which were real neat - I learned how to make the sounds with my mouth and then copied that with my guitar.
I actually wanted to be a drummer, but I didn't have any drums.
You know, there's a big lie in this business. The lie is that it's okay to go out in flames. But that doesn't do anybody much good. I may be wrong, but I think Hendrix was trying to come around.
The way I play, I go through a set in a year. So I put '58 Gibson Jumbo Bass frets on all my necks.
The Marshall is supposed to be 200 watts, but mine's never worked right; it peaks out at 80.
I got a lot of paradoxes in my life. I guess I'm a real confused person, but there are some focused parts to my life now, and I'm slowly trying to put all the pieces back together.
After I changed the string we picked up right where we left off - and punched back in at the same time. I don't know if this has ever been done before. The engineer sort of looked at us weird, but we got it on the first take.
I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks.
But between sets I'd sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.
I've put my life back together, but it's all a growing process and that's neat, too, because if you stop growing, what good is it musically? So that is what I am looking forward to - growing. In some ways, I felt stagnant in my life and it showed.
I mainly use Stratocasters. I like a lot of different kinds of guitars, but for what I do, it seems that a Stratocaster is the most versatile. I can pretty much get any sound out of it, and I use stock pickups.
Ya know, right now the most important thing in my life is to make sure you understand that, first of all I thank God I'm alive today, and I mean that. I spent too many years of my life thinking that the big party was the whole thing.
