Monterey was the Maraschino cherry on top of the Sundae that was the '60s. It was totally unprecedented, and the audience was unprecedented in their joy.

Everything worth doing starts with being scared.

I have the feeling that in a balanced life one should die penniless. The trick is dismantling.

Records became much cruder in the last 20 years. Let's put it that way.

I would start seeing, in just the sense I was saying now, the kind of record it was going to be and what the arrangement demands, and what my vocal part should be in the record. This was all emerging as the song was emerging.

After all these years, I'm finally into soccer. The World Cup is on, and my band is an international group - they're all around me, cheering in the hotel bars.

Never mind the transience of show business and popularity. When we hear Ray Charles, we go, 'That's a great singer.' You don't need a reporter or a writer to tell us. Good is good and it should shine through the years.