I wanted to play some more grown-up music - jazz.

Johnny was great in the studio; he was there to make the music that he wanted to make. We lived right beside each other and had a rehearsal studio that was just ours, with nobody else using it, it was part of Johnny's house, so we could rehearse every day.

Brenda did some little vocal arrangements for us and she got to sing as well. So, we're happy to be able to work together and that's another reason why we look forward to doing more of these.

I took the rhythm place, which a lot of people didn't know how to do the way I could, and this was really the first time that Johnny had a rhythm guitar player.

I started The McCoys in 1962, so I'm approaching my 40th year in the entertainment business.

My family is involved and my wife Brenda is a great, great writer. She helps me with the writing of everything and also sings with me. I owe a lot to Brenda.

So, after awhile, you can only get so much happiness from a guy who's drunk come up and tell you you're great.

I just really longed to do music that reflected me as an adult and music that I thought was for other adults.

If my musical tastes are continuing to grow up, and I am not really too interested in the music that my kids listen to, then I assume that the audience is doing the same.

The first time I heard Johnny play at the Fillmore East, I wasn't really impressed. He had come on the scene with everybody telling me how great he was, and I didn't hear it.

There was nobody at the time who was playing slide guitar like Johnny, and nobody, or no white guys at least, that was playing country blues like that on the acoustic guitar. And it was at that point that I realized what Johnny had to offer.

I was almost kind of trapped by my own success into only doing rock.

It's a great relationship when you can work with the person who you consider to be your soul mate.

I wanted to play some more grown-up music - jazz.

Because I was successful over the years, I never had the opportunity to do the stuff I really wanted.

For me, I go in and play a few Christian songs for an audience, and now I have people come up and not tell me I'm great, but tell me that my music is helping save their lives, helping them in the Lord, and helping them end their vices.

And what makes me happy now has changed as well... Its one thing to play in a bar or at a biker festival, and hear a guy who's been drinking beer all day come up and tell you how good you are. For a long time in your life that will make you happy.

We played all of the songs on the first Johnny Winter AND every day before we recorded them, so that when we got in the studio, it was totally easy, as we knew exactly what we wanted to do.

In the nineties I was doing those Blues Bureau records, but over the past two years, I have really gone back to my Christian roots and have been born again.

I know some people will be surprised to hear it, but I've found that my music, whether its blues or rock, or whatever you want to call it, can be channeled into a positive direction that actually helps people.

I've always been a guy who's pretty supportive, its just my nature, so I came in to the situation with the attitude that I wanted to support Johnny and make it work.

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records.

Here in England we live at a slower pace, have more time to enjoy things - like good jazz.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don't think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact.