I kind of got into blues by accident. I had started out with the trumpet and drums, and I liked the big band sound, horns and all that stuff. I listened to a lot of records, and the people who I listened to back then were Louis Jordan, T-Bone Walker with the guitar, Wynonie Harris, and then the rest came natural. I kind of gradually got into the blues after I had been spending time in Chicago. I would always rely on learning, getting a great inspiration from the people I would see doing the things I was taught to do.

Like many of the musicians in Chicago, I played on the street. One of the most famous places in Chicago at that time to play was Maxwell Street. Robert Nighthawk, the Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Hound Dog Taylor, the whole host of musicians played Maxwell Street. They had matinees on Saturday and Sunday. That was a big thing in the whole area of Chicago because a lot of the musicians that you heard on records, they played on the streets during the daytime to pay their rent and stuff because they made a lot more doing that than when they was playing the clubs.