I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America.

Yes, I was going to law school and it was closed in '69.

What is interesting in this is the exchange of music that occurred between New Orleans and Cuba, I mean, they had ferries that would go from one port to another.

And, he'd seen me in Panama, and he talked about maybe doing something in New York so I hooked it up when I came here and I recorded in 1969 my first album with Pete Rodriguez.

So I went to Miami in '74 with my family and while I was there it became obvious that we needed money and we needed to do something, because my family, we left without anything really, and we didn't have any money to begin with.

It doesn't make sense for me to be a lawyer in a place where there is no law.

There was no television, so the radio provided you with everything.