A young man ain't nothin' in the world these days

I sang and wrote songs when I was 12 years old.

The idea was I'd never amount to anything in music, The theme there was that I was talented, but I wouldn't work hard enough to do anything with it.

I remember the first check I got from The Who's recording [of "Young Man Blues"]. I'd been getting checks for $10 and $15 and so forth, and this one was for a much larger amount than that. I thought it was a mistake.

I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

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

My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.