Any good music must be an innovation.

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

In a sense, a hit belongs to the person who made it popular, but if a tune is good enough to attain tremendous success, then it certainly deserves more than one version, one treatment, one approach.

I love doing concert music.

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.

Under my contract with Capitol, I have complete freedom to do just about anything I want in my own way.

I don't know what the problem with Capitol is. Some one's got to wake 'em up. Prod 'em a little bit.