Everyone wants to do what the great ones do; but very few are willing to do what they did to become great

Definitely I had a lot of times where I was really hard on myself. Really frustrated. But I never felt like I had someplace else to go. Just had to stay here and deal with this.

Connection to the music and the history was very powerful to me. I think that's what I feel the most blessed about.

Sense of community was really fostered by Larry Laurenzano, who was a great educator.

We still talk about [school band]. Almost 40 years later. It's like people are talking about, "Man we need to have a morning band reunion".

Ernie Hayes, Jimmy Lewis, and either Belton Evans or Khalil Mahdi on drums [were in Sweet Basil]. All those guys really took care of me.

We had a great educator [in the school band], a man named Larry Laurenzano. He was tough, but we knew that he loved us. And that was the beginning of playing music with people and really being inspired and having fun and being in a community.