If you're into blues music, you've probably read and heard that Charlie Musselwhite is the greatest living blues harmonica player. Before the famed blues player performs at Capitol Oyster Bar on Thursday, we asked him about that statement, his long career, how his music has changed and what listeners can expect from his current show:

Q: It's been said that you are now the world's greatest living blues harp player. Do you agree with that?

A: I just don't think like that, and I sure wouldn't say it. There are just a whole bunch of great harmonica players now, and everyone has something to offer. I'm just one of them. It seems like there are more harp players now than ever. I just don't pay much attention when people say that sort of stuff. I mean it's nice for people to say it and all, but it's almost kind of embarrassing. Your new album "Delta Hardware" has been called the hardest rocking album you've ever done. That's what it has been called. I guess that's an apt description. It's just actually how we sound live. It's my regular band, my touring band. My last album had a lot of guests and was sort of put together in the studio. It was a sort of a dark, moody, laid-back CD. This time I wanted to go in an entirely different direction and do it with my own band. This is really a lot more representative of the way I sound on the road.

Q: So if people listen to your new CD, they should get a pretty good idea of how you will sound when you play here?

A: Oh yeah. I'll be playing with the same band that's on the CD, and we will be playing a lot from this CD as well as other stuff too.

Q: Did you start out playing harmonica?

A: Yeah. When I was a kid, it was sort of a common toy. Everyone seemed like they got a harmonica for a birthday or something. Plus my dad played, so there were harps around. So as a kid I would just play on it and make up stuff.

Q: Did you always want to play the blues?

A: I'd listened to music all my life -- especially country, gospel and blues -- and rockabilly was really happening then when I was growing up in Memphis. But blues just seemed to describe how I felt better than any other type of music. It wasn't like I remember the first time I heard blues; it was always part of the environment for me. I remember hearing people singing in the field as they were working, and they were singing blues, and I just loved that sound. I went around Memphis, seeking out old time blues singers and learned from them. But I didn't know I was preparing myself for a career or anything. I just knew I loved the music and loved playing it, and that was all it was about as far as I was concerned. When you moved from Memphis to Chicago, I heard that it wasn't the blues but the chance of a factory job that convinced you to go. Yeah, I didn't really know anything about Chicago. I didn't know all those guys lived up there. I didn't know where they lived. To me Chicago was just a place way up north where I heard there were a lot of factory jobs that paid good and had good benefits and weren't that hard to get. Times were hard in the South, so I went. The job I ended up getting was driving for an exterminator, and that was really lucky for me because it meant driving all around Chicago, and I learned the whole city real fast. And driving all around town, I'd end up seeing these signs and posters and things for people like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and this was just amazing to me that all these guys were there in Chicago. So I'd make a note where they were playing and then drive back out that night to hear all these people I'd been listening to for years.

Q: When did you first realize you could make a living playing the blues?

A: I guess it first really got my attention when I was asked to make my own album. To me, that was sort of the real beginning of my career. Before that I just thought I was sort of having fun -- which I was (laughing) . But I was also preparing myself for what came later. It's all paid off. It all worked out. It was just like the blues overtook me. I didn't have a plan. It just worked out that way. Listening to your early records and to your new albums, what differences do you hear? I think I'm a little better, and I'm still working at it. You know some people seem as if they sort of level off and stay with a certain style. I like to think that I'm always learning something because I'm investigating new ways to express myself. I think my music is going to just be continually evolving. I hope so.

Q:  Anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to mention?