I never thought I was playing black music. I was just playing music, the stuff I liked. I sang blues at parties and things when I was a kid.

My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.

I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was a different person. I met a lot of good jazz players in the army.

I don't care what anyone does, as long as they go through the copyright office.

If it's worth remembering, I'll remember it. If something keeps coming back, if I keep thinking of that phrase, if I see manifestations of it at different times and different places, then I feel it's worth making a song out of.

I didn't feel anything [frustraiting]. I just kept working 110 or 120 nights a year.

So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.