You have to ask these questions: who pays the piper, and what is valuable in this life?

I kind of disguise my limitations by hanging out with very talented people. The excitement of the collision between the microphone-twirling guy from 1966 to now is just a fantastic adventure. There aren't many of us left and I've managed to kind of cover my tracks pretty good.

It's a two-dimensional gig being a singer, and you can get lost in your own tedium and repetition.

I love the feeling of letting fly, of pushing as far as I could go with my voice. The only way you can really graduate how you do it is by doing it regularly to people who don't have to be super impressed. You can do it in the studio all day long but you don't get the flashback that you get onstage.

It's amazing, it's pumping, it's furious, it's anxious, it's happy and it's far more real than anything you'll ever experience in a Western city. Morocco is a living, pulsating entity which is rapidly changing all the time but there are parts of Marrakesh that carry on as they have done for a thousands years. The music is a reflection of that, of all times and all religions and of all the natural expectations and conditions of the people who live there.

I'm tipping the hat and looking back.

The music beckons to those who are listening.