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.

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

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

I was rooming with Jimmy Bowen at the time, doing some gigs, then I went back to New Orleans and played there in '62.

I think after 1970 or so, after I sold Soul City, I took off for awhile and didn't do too many gigs.

I'd gone through periods where I didn't work live performances for probably seven or eight months at a time.

One thing will lead to another and somebody will come up with a riff or a line or something we build from.