To me, Chuck Berry always was the epitome of rhythm & blues playing, rock & roll playing. It was beautiful, effortless, and his timing was perfection. He is rhythm man supreme. He plays that lovely double-string stuff, which I got down a long time ago but I'm still getting the hang of. Later I realized why he played that way -- because of the sheer physical size of the guy. I mean, he makes one of those big Gibsons look like a ukulele!

Everybody has to adapt their own physical possibilities to the instrument. Some guys have tiny little hands that can zip all over the thing. If you don't, you find another way. So given the size of his hands, it's not surprising that Chuck figured out a style where you didn't have to just nimbly pick one string at a time. He got harmonies down so that every note has another note behind it, which gives it that really strong, broad sound. It's fascinating. He's playing half-chords all the time.

I mean, those records Chuck made in the Fifties still basically stand out as your rock & roll guitar playing to the max. Especially when you add it to the songwriting and the singing and everything else. There's your package.

As for me, I've never picked a guitar up without learning something. Sometimes you're learning things you don't want to know, like you're not as good as you thought you were. But even that's a lesson. To me, it's a friend when there's nothing else around. Everybody else is asleep or gone, or your old lady's left you. Well, you've always got her. I mean, the shape alone . . . I sleep with the thing sometimes.