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and I think it made me more driven to try to refigure it out. So I did, and then at the same time,
I spent a lot of time in Chicago doing some work up there and I was going to a lot of blues clubs
in the evening and just listening to music and then all of a sudden, it lit a fire under me [laughing]
and that became what I did. So I began really studying acoustic blues and just going as far back
as I could and learning about the music of the early 1900s.

BiTS: And what was it that fascinated you about that? I mean, it's the music that I love as well,
so we're talking about the same thing. What is it about that music that attracts you?

MS: Well, I'll be honest, my closest to that
initially was listening to Johnny Winter

talking about Muddy Waters, and so I
bought some Muddy Waters music. But
then one night, I had some work friends
over and we were playing poker, and the
Robert Johnson recordings, the 29
recordings of Robert Johnson, had just
been released. I don't know if you
remember the box set that came out.

BiTS: Oh, yes.

MS: He brought them over and I couldn't
stop listening to it. I was doing a lot of
driving at the time for work, and once a
week, I was driving like a four-hour road
trip once a week to Houston, and I would
put those recordings in and listen to them
nonstop all the way down there and all the
way back until they were like etched in my head. Then I started researching everybody that was
kind of played during that time. So I got really into the history of it and bought a bunch of books
and really started studying the music of Mississippi. And it was kind of special that I was from
Arkansas because Arkansas is considered part of that Delta region and there's some good
musicians from Arkansas.

BiTS: Aside from Robert Johnson that you've already mentioned, is there a particular artist from
around about that time that you enjoy listening to still?

MS: Yes, yes, yes. Still love that music and really enjoy a lot of the new players that are recreating
it.

BiTS: I'm a huge Big Bill Broonzy fan myself. How about you?

MS: Yes. Yeah, Big Bill [chuckles]. He was sort of one of the people I studied when I was getting
into the fingerstyle and all the alternating bass stuff that he did, he was sort of an intro to me.
Really, really loved his early music.

BiTS: Now you had this dreadful accident and you re-taught yourself, I guess, to play the guitars
to take account of the injury. When did you start playing for real, in public, for example?

MS: Yeah, yeah, I probably really studied and played hard and sort of in the bedroom for ten
years, just living and breathing and learning everything I could, and then I had a friend that was
close, and he said, you really should be sharing some of this out in public. So I got a gig, an acoustic
gig and did it. Then the same friend, his name was Sean Womack, I was also heavily involved in