It was the British rockers that saved me. They brought me to a different generation altogether [in the 60th]. The Who and The Yardbirds and Georgie Fame and Van Morrison and all those people. The only person who ever did my songs in [ U.S] country was Bonnie Raitt.

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.

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

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

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

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

I don't sit down to write a song; they just come to me from something that somebody says, or something in the news. The punchline comes to me, and I go over it in my head and get the song form. I hadn't been doing that a lot.