I always wanted to be a Californian. In my wildest dreams, I always liked California - it's the place where oranges grows on trees! Fruit just falls off the trees.

The basis of everything that I plugged into when I was younger was blues, and it always stayed with me.

I was in college, and very disappointed. I majored in commercial art and interior design for three or four years. At that time, it seemed the thing I really wanted to do, production design, just wasn't available in the U.K., so I turned to music.

I'm really still a child of the Forties. I still think about it a lot, about the repercussions of armed conflict. Until 1953 we had rationing. We couldn't buy meat, we couldn't buy pleasurable goods like cigarettes and sweets. I didn't starve - my family were lucky - but I knew what it was like standing in line waiting for foodstuffs.

Longevity is something I never gave a second thought to. I guess it's the shadow of growing up in post WWII, but I never believed I would live past 20. Here I am though... a senior citizen... my voice and heart are stronger than ever, but boredom is the greatest enemy so I have to be careful not to slip over the edge.

Recording - once something's done, it's done, there's not much you can do about it. It's out there and you just have to pray to the gods.

I'm not bitter, I'm bittersweet.