After I exhausted the blues thing, I got into jazz.

Even by the time I was four or five, I had Gene Autry records.

I was coerced into taking piano lessons in the early '50s. It was a quite unpleasant experience.

I was 12 in '55 when rock and roll hit. It just completely transformed me.

From '69 til '76, I never played in public. I would play by myself at home.

I started off with the really funky stuff like Ramsey Lewis, Milt Jackson, Kenny Burrell.

Meanwhile after failing the bar twice, I knew some people in New York and moved here in August '71.