"i) I am doing probably what they were doing up there, which is try to emulate the music I heard coming from America in some shape or form. It's defining coming from America, rock 'n' roll, rockabilly if you like, like in the modes of what (Elvis) Presley was doing and inspiring so many people like Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, all of them. And then accessing the blues and wanting as much to be sort of B.B. King, do you know what I mean? It was this sort of growth, really, of this voracious appetite I had for all things six strings, really. I can see how it manifests across the board. ii) We got to meet Elvis on May 11, 1974. He'd been the one who'd done so much for so many, setting everyone alight and flighting right under the radar with all of this black music, doing numbers by country blues artists like Arthur Crudup and Sleepy John Estes. It was unbelievable. He was one of us. And think about it! He started in 1954 – that was more than ten years before we arrived. It's miraculous that he made it through! He had the hand of God over him, he really did. He was the one that brought it all together. He brought blues and race music to the white culture. Rewinding to 1974, we were invited to see him play and then invited back to a party afterward. We went up to his suite. There was just a few other people. I can tell you we were really nervous when he came in the door. He really moved as naturally cool in real life as he did on film. That wasn't an act, that's just how he really was! It was real cool to us. It was a little awkward at first because his music meant so much to us but then somebody said 'You know that hot rod you drove in the movie 'Loving You'? And that was that everybody just drove into the conversation relaxed and had fun. He was wonderful a fantastic man!!! On this day in 1998, I played at Tupelo, where Elvis was born and raised, when there were no local attractions apart from the cotton fields or getting to Memphis. When Elvis grew up it must have been pretty bleak but the white and black picked the cotton side by side and the local indigenous music provided the soundtrack to this tough environment and it took the visionary genius of Elvis to blend those musical sources and change the world."