"This art form, and it is an art form, which winds up being tagged as blues, is largely made up of expressions so genuine that they come straight out without second- or third-draft revisions. There's a resonance that's magnetic, kind of a compelling entity of its own. Shemekia Copeland, her dad is also from Houston, and released a couple of regional hits under the name Johnny 'Clyde' Copeland. As teenagers when we had the garage band we attempted playing – and the word is attempted – his great record 'Down On Bending Knees'. Talk about compelling – that was a great record. 

Unknown to me, Shemekia recorded a ZZ Top song, 'Jesus Just Left Chicago'. Her people asked if I'd consider playing a guitar figure and I said I'd really enjoy it. She didn’t know that I treasured the work her dad gave us. I said, well what's this for? A single? ""Well, we think it'll be single-worthy, as part of an album."" An album? Well I gotta hear it."

"You know, what’s touched me I think is GoodFellas… It’s a very real movie. GoodFellas is really some deep stuff. It was very good. It was believable. It just felt like Queens. I don’t know if a lot of that movie was filmed in Queens, but it felt like something that was happening in my backyard that I didn’t really know about. So it’s almost like a history lesson. The acting is so good. I’ve said that a couple of times, but that’s my truth. When he came out with the gun and beats the kid up for messing with his sister, the kid was like, “You got something to say to m–,” and before he could say the word “me,” he was beat up. That’s the scene for me. It was very real to me that guys would do that for their family. People just want to be successful in life. They all want to be happy. And some people go about it in a way that’s pretty destructive, but in that scene, you could see how much he loved his family."