I was considered as a jazz man rather than as a blues player. There were no blues players-you played one sort of jazz of another sort of jazz.

Blues and jazz pulled me away from what was left of my family.

The British feel of blues has been hard, rather than emotional. Far too much emphasis on 12 bar, too little attention to words, far too little originality.

The parallel development in American blues to the British movement has resulted in Johnny Winters.

In 1940 I came across a record by Jimmy Yancey. I can't say how important that record is. From then on, all I wanted to do was play the blues.

I guess music, particularly the blues, is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.