[Jazz musicians] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.

Making love in the green grass behind the stadium with you my brown eyed girl.

The idea [of A Period of Transition album] was to get a break from everything for a while because I've been doing it for so long. I started doing it when I was 12.

I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.

Love of the simple is all that I need, I've no time for schism or lovers of greed.

Skiffle was blues featuring a washboard and acoustic instruments. It encompassed blues, with elements of folk, jazz, and, at times, American country-and-western music.

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.