Radio was my lifeline as a kid growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s. It connected me with the wider world outside our little prairie city.

My love, growing up on the Prairies, was country music.

There is a great book out called 'Everything I Needed to Learn I Learned in Kindergarten,' and I believe that everything I ever needed to learn on guitar was in my first two years of hungry learning: Scotty Moore, Hank Marvin, Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.

Those two songs condense the two albums. They also show what the audiences wanted. I was desperate to keep the band together and find something that the public would like.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends.

The 2008 presidential election was a triumph of hope and unity over fear and divisiveness. Barack Obama's election reshapes America's political landscape and wipes away the false geography of 'red states' and 'blue states.'

And humility in politics means accepting that one party doesn't have all the answers; recognising that working in partnership is progress not treachery.