@curiousjim
Perhaps what I was thinking about was, for lack of a better word, "attitude".
He's always struck me as being pretty down-to-earth and unassuming -- there's not a lot of ego or "edge" on display. He doesn't need to brag -- his playing speaks for itself. Rightly or wrongly, I tend to associate such a demeanor with Midwesterners, no offense intended.
I have seen my share of shows over the years but there are plenty here who've seen far more, I imagine. I did have the good fortune to live in Santa Barbara from '76 to '82. Many acts would stop there between gigs in LA and the Bay Area.
On the other hand, I was born just a few years too late to catch the likes of Cream, Hendrix, Joplin or Bloomfield in his prime. Woodstock is quite close to where I grew up and I read somewhere that around the time of the festival, Hendrix travelled to Middletown to see a doctor whose daughter was a classmate of mine.