Corruption at every level, city, state, federal, all has helped in making New Orleans a disaster area, the most disappearing land mass on the planet Earth.

If we don't be going strong, we're going weak, and we can't afford to go weak. We've got too many problems to do that.

See, I dont know nothing about singing. I never wanted to be a frontman. Frontmen had big egos and was always crazy and aggravating. I just never thought that was a good idea.

My mom was beautiful; she was supposed to be the original Jane in the original Tarzan movie. They asked her to put her foot in the water and there was an alligator in there, and she wouldn't put her foot in the water.

History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell there political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. History tells a people where they have been and what they have been, where they are and what they are. Most important, history tells a people where they still must go, what they still must be. The relationship of history to the people is the same as the relationship of a mother to her child.

I've been thinking a lot lately about taking chances, and how it's really just about overcoming your fears. Because the truth is, everytime you take a big risk in your life, no matter how it ends up, you're always glad you took it.

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.