I played American football, but I did my best work with baseball.
Basically, as everybody that has had a taste of the record business knows, they are gangsters and crooks.
Is there one blues guy who was the most sophisticated and influential, like Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong in jazz? Was it Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Robert Johnson, or all of them? I think you have to pick all of them.
My roots are in everything from doo-wop and blues to the Four Freshman and the Beach Boys and jazz and electronica. But it was put together in a deceptively simple package.
When I was a kid, I never thought I would ever be able to make records and never really thought seriously about a musical career because a musical career was being Fabian or Frankie Avalon or something. It didn't make any sense. There wasn't any possibility to get into that world.
You know, songs like 'Rock'n Me' were actually written to be played in large... for a hundred thousand people kind of gatherings. And a lot of what came out on 'Fly Like an Eagle' and 'Book of Dreams' was music that was put together to be played in big, big venues with big light shows.
The audience wants to hear 'Rock n' Me,' 'Space Cowboy,' 'Living in the U.S.A.' When you start to play something else, you can feel the interest and enthusiasm go; the steam goes out of room. They are really 'Greatest Hits' fans and that's what they want to hear. It's disappointing that it's this way in the U.S.
Journey was a jazzy jam band when they first started. They were very out there.
Growing up in Dallas, my first influences on the guitar were T-Bone Walker and Les Paul. T-Bone taught me how to play lead guitar behind my head and do the splits in 1951 when I was nine.
I'm sort of standing on T-Bone Walker's shoulders, Les Paul's shoulders, Lightnin' Hopkins' shoulders, Muddy Waters' shoulders, you know? And if I've inspired other people, I'm pleased. That pleases me greatly.
What the hell is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and what does it do besides talk about itself and sell postcards?
The record business has been so unpleasant and so bad for so long.
I've always considered myself a serious guitar player, but I haven't been really worried about whether the public thought I was. That never was part of my record sales strategy.
When I was a kid this is what I was listening to on my car radio - Lowell Fulsom singing 'Tramp.'
