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leopard skin swimsuits on, turning flips and playing the Bo Diddley beat with like

20 drummers, some saxophones and I was going I don't know what that is. I wanna
to do that, but I'm gonna do it on the guitar. So that's how I got exposed to the Bo
Diddley beat and wanted to play music, but I didn’t know it was the Bo Diddley beat

yet.

BiTS: [Chuckles] So you got yourself a guitar. Did your parents buy you another
one?

OKD: Yeah, I got one for Christmas, an acoustic. I had an electric before, but I got
an acoustic and of course, I wanted to be electrified, so I bought a guitar pickup for
an acoustic guitar from a friend of mine that I went to school with. I bought it for $5

and put it in there, and I didn't have any amplifier, but my Sunday school teacher
owned a Lafayette PA system, and he would lend that PA system to me, and I could
play my guitar through it and sing.

BiTS: That's wonderful.

OKD: So I would sing. I had a microphone I
bought from the same guy that sold me the
pickup, sold me a microphone for five dollars,
and I started plugging that microphone in that

Lafayette PA and playing my guitar through it.

BiTS: How did you actually learn to play? I
mean, did you listen to records and follow

along or what?

OKD: I just toughed it out till I got to where I
could play.

BiTS: Okay.

OKD: I went across the tracks and played in

a place—at a black juke joint—and I didn't
even know how to play. But I didn't know that
I didn't know how to play. I thought I was great and I wasn't. I didn't know nothing

[laughing].

BiTS: When did you get good? I mean, did you realise that you were wanting to
form a band and that sort of thing?

OKD: Well, I didn't know. I had a black drummer that was way older than me. He
was probably 50 years old. I don't know how old he was. I was 13 or I was 14. So I
thought he was ancient, you know. He played drums and I had a buddy that went

to the school with me who I hardly even knew, and he said he had a bass guitar. I
said, you want to be in a band? He went, yeah [chuckles], and he couldn't hardly
play.