Whenever I wrote songs - particularly back then - it would always be for a particular artist.

When you're playing live, those people who you're trying to please and reach, they're right there giving you feedback. And you don't get that feedback in the studio.

To travel and to get around different places, especially in station wagons, you could really see America.

I never planned on being a live performer. My whole forte was about being in the studio, producing, playing the piano on recording sessions. I was all about the studio.

My music is homegrown from the garden of New Orleans. Music is everything to me short of breathing. Music also has a role to lift you up - not to be escapist but to take you out of misery.

Whenever I wrote songs - particularly back then - it would always be for a particular artist.

To play with a band all of the time, just about nightly, was good for me because I wrote lots of arrangements and I got a lot of my transposition and chords ironed out.