J: Oh well in the case of Skip James I’d heard his 1931 recorded 78’s and he played in, I couldn’t figure out in what tuning he was in or how he did what he did, I just couldn’t get it. So by that time, say 58/59 I led a lot of excursions into the deep south looking for old records, particularly by blues figures and also looking for Pete Lloyd, Skip James and Bukka White and so on. And eventually I did find Skip James and we did not get along very well, clashing personalities, but he did show me what tuning he was in, which was open D minor and he showed me basic chords and he showed me some stuff he’s never recorded that I play in concert a lot. Also I found Bukka White who was a really nice guy, we got along real well, had a lot of fun and adventures together. Both these people died a long time ago. And I wrote a theoretical book on the modes Charlie Patton sang in, the tunings he used on the guitar, and the rhythmic structure. That was my master’s thesis at UCLA and I wanted to find out what it was about Patton that was so exciting. Because to me he was the most exciting guitar player and blues singer ever heard. So in order to find out what he was doing I had to really analyze what he did. He’s left behind about 40 records. He died in 1934 but we have most of his records. What I found was that he, in an approximately 12 bar blues song he almost never played 12 bars exactly, I averaged them all and it came out to 13 and a half. So he was always doing unexpected things which didn’t draw you when he did them but nevertheless were executed so well, with such dexterity, that you noticed it, you felt it, he was hot like very few other people and that’s what I found the great thing about Charlie Patton was.