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MS: An absolute honour and really genuinely I think what was most remarkable to
me was that one of the earliest albums that I became interested in or kind of

confounded with when I was a very small girl but then learned to love, was “Live at
the Cafe Au Go-Go”, and what actually happened was that we were fortunate to have
played with quite a number of blues people just prior to meeting John Lee and then

we supported him in Dublin and followed on by meeting him in New Haven in
Connecticut. What we realised and what was true, was that we had people in
common. So we knew people.

BP: [Chuckling] You talked about other
musicians almost all the time.

MS: Brian had such a good recollection

of his recording history, and I think that
he was quite taken by the fact that there

was a lot of common elements to it, and
we could share that. It was the first time,
not the last time, but it was certainly the
first time that I really felt the sense of,

or the potential for the community, the
family of blues people and being part of

that. Quite frankly, Ian, I was sitting in
that dressing room as we were talking
with John Lee, really wondering how has
that happened? I've had it happen a few times.

BP: You had more expertise on his history than his band. We were sitting there and
his band kept saying, hey what song is that, John Lee? We'd be saying, oh geez that’s
‘Boogie Chillen’ in Detroit 1948. I wasn't going to mention any names, Mike Osborne

he kept re-tuning John Lee's guitar, and then he'd go out and John Lee would tune it
back.

MS: He really knew how he wanted to play it and how he wanted his guitar. It was
also I think, the nature and everyone will know this of John Lee, that it is quite all a
stream of consciousness that he played in a way that really didn't conform to the 12

bar or even 16. He wasn't conforming, he was expressing and I think this was what
we spoke about as well. We talked about blues as an expression.

BiTS: That's very interesting because I believe that he was actually, as you suggested,

very difficult to follow.

MS: Yes, he was. He was.

BP: He changes what he wants to, I guess.

MS: Yeah. And I mean, there are those who actually allowed him, or with whom he
flourished because that could happen.