I'm not a pitiable creature. It's just that I suffer very eloquently.

Back then, I didn't have a big organization around me. I was just a kid with a guitar, traveling around. My responsibility basically was to the art, and I had extra time on my hands. There is no extra time now. There isn't enough time.

I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.

I lost my daughter at 21. I had to give her up because I was broke, no place to take her, no money to take her. That was very traumatic.

Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.

My childhood was very difficult. I had every childhood disease and then some, but my parents didnt mollycoddle me. They left me to fight those battles on my own. I guess that was very Canadian, very stoic. But its good. I had to become a warrior. I had to give up hope and find a substitute for hope that would be far more stable.

White rhythm is waltzes, marches, and the polka. In Africa, rhythm is used for a celebratory groove, but white rhythm doesn't have such an enormous vocabulary of spirits. It's basically militant.