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to another university working on my masters. I was good enough to get my college paid for by playing
basketball. My basketball career didn’t happen though. I broke my foot in a couple of places and that
was it I stopped. But that’s destiny I guess if I had been a ball player I never would have been a blues
man.

When I was growing up there was a
lot of music around my town as we
had the Motown sounds and stuff. I
would listen to all these songs from

Santana, Jackson Five, Motown,
Chicago, Smokey Robinson and I got
a guitar and I would try and hit the
song and play it. Radio stations had
rotations so I would hear that same
song again so what I didn’t learn the
first time I would catch it and try

and learn it on the rotation. So that’s
how I started playing guitar now
this was when I was twelve or
thirteen and I also had a drum kit
and a bass guitar and this was a

young kid. I would play along to Al
Green records and I’m self taught on
those instruments. I would buy a
bunch of 45s. I dabbled back and
forth with music all through my
high school and college. I remember
I was the leader of the boys club

band and I taught all the guys the
songs and we would enter talent shows this was when I was about twelve or so.

I never listened to my father’s music back then I just listened to the popular music of the day. I thought
his music was too easy for me and it was a kind of music that none of my friends liked. It wasn’t until

he passed away that I thought I wanted to do a tribute to him and I remember reading somewhere
that he said it took him one year to get good so I thought that sounded cool. I thought I was just as
good as he was but it took me about ten years to get good. After the first year with his music I was
still in elementary school. Blues is a very complicated music if you play it right and learn it the right
way. There are so many people who can’t play it right. I’ve had day jobs and night jobs in the past
and I was working when I was about twelve years old. My grandmother believed in working and I

remember one year before I started working she was poor but did her best to keep food on the table
and a roof over our heads she bought me a yellow shirt and pants. I went to a school that had uniform
so everyday for a half school year I would wear those same yellow pants and the same yellow shirt
so much that they called me yellow pants and that would make me cry. So I thought I’m never going
to let that happen again so when I was twelve years old I told her I was going to work and buy me
some school clothes. She took me to the farm truck that used to take people to the fields to pick

strawberries and beans and stuff so that was my very first job working in the fields all day long. So