I don't feel bad learning blues from Mel Bay or Kenny Sultan--I learned it at least. I can listen to any old recording and I know what he's doing and know what tuning he's using and I know what key he's in. I learned a lot from those books. I learned bottleneck from the Stefan Grossman book and, again, I can listen to another slider and I know what he's doing and what tuning he's using and all that. If you read the books and listen to what these guys are saying, you get the hang of it. The rest is up to you. Once I got the rudiments of it down, I can try my hand at John Lee Hooker or Patton stuff without feeling intimidated and totally out of my league (though I may be). The books gave me the confidence to give it a go without any real tutor to help me along.

There's a real bluesman around here (and, yeah, he's black) who likes how I play. When I told him I just fake it after learning it from some books he just shrugged and said it didn't matter. You gotta do what you gotta do if you want to play the blues. I guess that's true.

As for doo-wop, all the earliest bands were black. My favorite doo-wop singer, I guess, is Jimmy Beaumont. That guy could belt it out like no one else. My favorite doo-wop band, though, was the Cadillacs--they knew what the hell they were doing.