I just was knocked over by the obvious roots of the blues.

The world I live in is benefiting from things like satellite radio. Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I'm hearing is an appreciation of real music.

I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got older, too, and would come to see me when I'm 80.

Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.

I'm just glad that I'm the musical equivalent of a character actress, because blues singers can keep singing and having an audience at 35, and someone like Madonna's gonna have to find something else to do, 'cos I don't care how pointy those bras are that she wears, they're still gonna look a little odd when she's 55!

Nobody taught me to play bottleneck. I just saw it and taught myself. I got an old bottle and steamed the label off, put it on the wrong finger, I basically did everything wrong until I met some of the Blues legends early in my career who taught me another way. I didn't have anyone to tell me women didn't play bottleneck.