If you're going to get into music, you've got to learn the 12-bar blues.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

When I came back to California in the early '60s I was hanging out with Jimmy Bowen, Phil Spector, and I wanted to be a record producer and work with other artists.

But I always loved songs with great lyrics.

My first really good guitar was a Gibson J-45.

I've got a Fender Concert amp from the '60s, the one Joe Osborn used. He played his bass through it.

I was working at this club in downtown L.A. from four to eight at night, just Eddie Rubin, the drummer, and I.