Doc has been my name all my life, and John is my middle name. I'm proud of all my names - Malcolm John Michael Creaux Rebennack. I'm proud of them names.

I think that any of the places that's cut off from money, things come up, what the people have to rely on.

You wanna do some livin' before you die. Do it down in New Orleans.

Marvin Gaye was a killer drummer. I think he just played during the soundchecks and he'd have another guy sing his parts while he played the drums. He just wanted to play the drums and have some fun.

Everybody in my neighborhood in the '40s, they played pianos. That's how people partied. They didn't try the TV, the radio was OK, records was cool, but when people wanted to party, they got around a piano. My mother played piano, my sister played. I've been around a lot of piano all my life.

The events which transpired five thousand years ago; Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years From now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event.

In 1972, I recorded Gumbo, an album that was both a tribute to and my interpretation of the music I had grown up with in New Orleans in the 1940s and 1950s. I tried to keep a lot of the little changes that were characteristic of New Orleans, while working my own funknology on piano and guitar.