I was writing with different people in Nashville - whoever I could. Eddie Hinton came on the scene about 1963, and about four years later we wrote a ton of songs together. I drifted around, but Eddie and I had some cuts through the '60s and '70s. I went on the road with Kris Kristofferson in 1970.

I went to visit a friend of mine, a writer name Troy Seal, a songwriting fool. He's had a ton of hits. He said, "I've got a thing I'm stuck on." I can hear the wind a blowin' - he already had that. You and me lord, we had it all. He only had that first verse. For some reason he was stuck. But that's how that came about.

I've known just thousands of people a hell of a lot more talented than me who never could get anywhere.

Tom Stafford was an odd character, you know - a brilliant guy. He looked weird and I think he took a really defensive attitude about being a hunchback. You know how people can be, giving him a hard time. So he turned that into a defensive mechanism. He would strike first, a lot of times. But he was a great guy, and really those talks we had when I was about 15, out of all of that came the studio over the drugstore and everything else. I'm not saying - I'm no big deal, but I was a part of the birth of the music there.

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm very blessed and lucky to have made a good living doing what I've loved to do. I just hope I can do another one after this.

If you're a songwriter, it's to perform your songs. For singers, it's just to get to sing somewhere. So while there may be a reluctance with all the things that go along with it, you got to choose, and this is one of my big opportunities to get back doing it.

I was wanting to do an album but I didn't know if I was really ready. Jerry Wexler was one of my closest friends and allies, like my godfather. He said, "Let's do an album." I couldn't sing worth a damn, but there were some good songs.