By the time of our 1979 interview, Mick Taylor, master of slide guitar and the poignant solo, had accumulated some of the most stellar credentials imaginable. Thirteen years earlier, just after he’d turned seventeen, Mick had launched his career with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, touring the U.S. and playing brilliantly on six albums. “He had the hard job of replacing Peter Green in my band,” Mayall wrote in 1970, “and over the period of two years made the grade to where people who played the guitar used to crowd every concert …

The passionate, hard-driving blues song “Dust My Broom” has been filling dance floors and exhilarating listeners for more than 60 years. The song’s been covered by countless performers – a quick search on youtube turns up versions by Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, The Yardbirds, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Winter, Canned Heat, Ike and Tina Turner, Taj Mahal, Freddie King, Luther Allison, Junior Brown and Warren Haynes, R.L. Burnside, Duwayne Burnside, James Son Thomas, ZZ Top, Gary Moore, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, G. Love, Todd Rundgren, and the list goes …

Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Touré first crossed trails in London in 1992. As a token of his admiration, the legendary African musician presented Cooder the one-string lute he’d played as a child. The musicians agreed to collaborate in the future. Two years later, Touré journeyed from Timbuktu to the U.S. for a tour and to record an album, Talking Timbuktu, for the Rykodisc label. Asked to produce the album and sit in on guitar, Cooder quickly agreed. “I’m glad to do it,” Cooder told me at the time. “Ali …

Sometimes the most memorable interviews happen unexpectedly. Researching Blind Willie Johnson, the sublime prewar gospel-blues slide guitarist from Texas, I was struck by how magnificently Ry Cooder had used Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night – Cold Was the Ground” in his Paris, Texas soundtrack. I sent Cooder a note asking if he’d give me a quote. A few days later, on February 25, 1990, the phone rang and it was the man himself. After talking about Blind Willie Johnson, Ry suddenly moved on to another Johnson – Robert – …