The voice has been my joker card that sometimes has played like an ace and sometimes a joker. When you sing the way I sing, it's impossible to get people to talk about anything else.
I bought a Hofner guitar and amplifier for 32 guineas, then spent ages trying to make a bottleneck. At that point, I was meant to be developing my father's ice-cream cafe into a global concern, but I spent all my time in the stockroom playing slide guitar.
My ambition, a long time ago, was to be a film music writer. A compromise then was to be the guy who wrote songs for a band and played slide guitar. Then the singer didn't turn up for an audition, and I was the only one who knew the words. That was it - bingo! Life took a different course.
Charley Patton is the original inspiration. I didn't play anything when I was a kid. Then, when I was 20, I went into my mam's bedroom because she had a double mirror, and I wanted to see what the back of my hair was doing. She had an alarm-clock radio, and it came on with this old guy moaning and hollering, playing this strange guitar.
My heroes were gospel blues players like Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, not whoever was number one.
I made a lot of money, but you can dangerously let it lead you on. It depends what company you keep.
My father used to control the wholesale of many ice-cream items in Middlesbrough. He was central distributor for most of the region.
When I was young, I wanted, most of all, to be a writer of films and film music. But Middlesbrough in 1968 wasn't the place to be if you wanted to do movie scores.
In a funny way, the illness spurred me on. I thought to myself, 'I've got to get through this operation to make a blues album.'
I feel I've had three careers in one, really. There was the 'Benny Santini' stuff; that came with a general sense of, 'Who the hell is he?' And then there was 'The Road To Hell' stuff, and now there's the blues stuff.
The Italian side of my family were gypsies, and we are little hard so-and-sos.
Eric Clapton's scales - when he comes off a high note and it's time for a refrain or a little bit of a rest, he peals off scales going downwards that are so good it's unbelievable.
It's bleak behind the Iron Curtain, although they do have the strongest vodka I've ever had in my life.
Dad was a distant figure, autonomous, a cross between the Pope and Mussolini. He was very Italian, as were all of my uncles, although they were second generation.
The first time I arrived in Hollywood for the Grammy Awards, I thought I'd bump into people who mattered, such as Ry Cooder or Randy Newman. I was disappointed to see the people I'd always thought of as pop stars. They would charge around the stage rather than enjoy the music.
I actually, truly do love my family. It's not a public relations exercise.
As soon as I paid the mortgage off in 1988, I started racing cars.
I'm lucky to be alive. I'm one of only 40 people who have survived the surgery I had, and when you've been that close to dying, you re-evaluate what's really important to you - and it's nothing to do with fame and money.
I have found out who are my real friends, thanks to the illness and hospitals.
Music is a saviour for me.
