[The producer told me:] "We can try one more record, and we'll see how that one does." Those records never did anything. My music never got mentioned. My color got mentioned.

I haven't stopped and I don't plan on stoppin' any time soon.

I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.

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'm playin' the music I like.

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

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