I'm not so much of a person for causes, unless I specifically - for instance, if it's my cause, or some poor people's, I'll try to help. But you won't find me playing for any peace candidates - or any candidates.
When you play with another piano player, it's just second nature to play the parts that need to be played.
I used to write on pads with a pen but had trouble reading the words the next day. Years later, Bob Dylan taught me to just write and write on a laptop computer. Then I'd print that out. When it was time to write a song, I'd go through the pages and sing melodies to words that moved me.
I've always sort of been at odds with radio programmers.
I am not aware of my public image or what people think of me. I don't evaluate myself that way.
My chops have always been sort of weak, because the right side of my body was paralyzed a little bit. It was very limiting. I have to design stuff I can play, and it took me a year and a half to figure out how to hold a guitar pick.
For years, when I was popular, I would face the blank page to write, and I couldn't think of anything that I thought was good enough.
When I say I don't get involved in politics, I merely mean that I don't talk to reporters about it.
I like that old style of country music - it seems to me that a lot of the modern country music is rehashed rock n' roll.
I scarcely talk to reporters at all.
For years and years, I would sit in my studio, and I wouldn't have any inspiration. I'd write one or two songs a year.
I was with my band at a karaoke bar in Japan when it was very big there, and they got up and made fools of themselves without practicing properly. I didn't understand why they were doing that. It was like they were making fun of the genre by performing badly. But I didn't get up and sing, so I don't know what it feels like.
I had a band with David Gates. There was just a lot of opportunity at that time. But I left for Los Angeles the week after I graduated high school, and I actually left to try to get into the advertising business. That was really why I went out to L.A. My music career was almost an accident.
I've always felt I struck out with Doris Day. Her son, Terry Melcher, was a producer I worked for at Columbia, and one day, he asked me to go to her house to play piano on a song she was doing. So I get there, and she has about 30 dogs running around the place - turns out she's a dog rescuer.
One of the features of being a piano player is playing as an accompanist for other people.
Watching yourself on film, if you've never watched yourself on film before, you want to go crawl into bed and stay there for a week.
I remember reading 'Catcher in the Rye,' but I don't think I got it.
Songwriting was very tough for me... I would go in and sit and hope for inspiration to come, and it was rarely forthcoming.
I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.
Actually, I didn't listen to country music very much in Oklahoma. I listened to blues and rock n' roll.
