I came up in Brooklyn singing doo-wop music from the time I was 13 to the time I was 20. That music served a purpose of keeping a lot of people out of trouble, and also it was a passport from one neighborhood to another.

I must have played every college and university at least three times, and that goes for most of the clubs. I'd be on the road six days a week, go home and change bags, and then be gone for another six days.

I eat once a day if I remember, and I try never to go to sleep.

I don't get sick. I can't afford to get sick.

The direction for my music is heaven, of course. We gear all things to the realm of heaven - which is the mind, the organized mind.

I started out by myself, but it eventually turned into a trio by the mid-'60s - a conga drum and another guitarist. And that's been mostly what I've worked with most of the time.

Woodstock happened in August 1969, long before the Internet and mobile phones made it possible to communicate instantly with anyone, anywhere. It was a time when we werent able to witness world events or the horrors of war live on 24-hour news channels.