The first time I heard Albert Collins, I was twelve or thirteen and I hadn't really started to play guitar. I was at my dad's ex-girlfriend's house, and she had the record Ice Pickin' -- it blew me away. The production is so funky and raw. It's a mix of blues and funk, and somewhere in between it has this Seventies TV-themefunk, like The Jeffersons. It's wild. The way he picks and chooses his notes, the way he attacks the guitar -- he can be sweet and gentle at the same time. He makes you hold your breath through one of his runs, and when he's done, you exhale. He's the man. With Albert, B.B. and Buddy Guy, those guys have such a sense that it's the missing notes that are the glue inside of a guitar part that set up everything.

As far as young guitarists go, there's this girl in Minneapolis named Shannon Curfman. She does the old Chaka Khan funky blues kind of stuff. She's only fourteen or fifteen, and she scares me.