Dec 25, 2025
Otis Redding was one of the best producers. He didn’t really get the credit at Stax, but it was him putting those records together. I mean, Steve Cropper and all those guys were definitely helping him. But I got to watch him at Fame and if there was a genius running...
Dec 25, 2025
When I am writing a song, say, a blues song, it’s not up to me to try to make it a reggae song. Because the songs tell you, “I am a blues song. I am not a reggae song.” Maybe when it’s finished and it’s in its pure form, somebody else could take it and change it and...
Dec 25, 2025
I’d like to believe, whether it’s true or not, that I’m getting better—or at least that I’m not getting worse. Music is so complicated that it’s something you can always get better at. I don’t understand the fact that most singer-songwriters in pop music...
Dec 25, 2025
I never thought I could sing. Doo would come in from working and catch me rocking my babies to sleep. And I would be singing, “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas …” (laughs). That was the only song that I could sing to them that would make them go to sleep. He came in...
Dec 25, 2025
Songwriting is never the same process, ever. That’s the humbling part. It’s magic—one minute it’s not there, and the next minute it’s there. That said, it begins with some type of inspiration. There has to be something that affects me in a way that’s strong enough to...
Dec 25, 2025
There are two different kinds of songwriters: the songwriter who writes strictly for the joy of being a writer and doesn’t care anything about the monetary aspects of it; and then you have the other guy who has this as his career. This is his job. This is his...
Dec 25, 2025
“You’re never quite sure where the song is going, because you might not find the word to rhyme with the end of the line. You have to find associative meaning to get you there. So it’s rather like doing a crossword puzzle backwards. A kind of strange,...
Dec 25, 2025
“There’s a feeling when I’m on to an idea and making something up that’s almost a momentum that carries me and I find pushes me into the next verse. It’s not really a matter of doing an outline. And you know in school we were always taught to do an outline, and I...
Dec 25, 2025
“My songwriting process has come full circle. It’s exactly the way I wrote when I was 10. Usually I start with a note that I hit, and that starts a melody and lyric all at the same time. Or I’ll have a line written down that I know I want to sing about, and I’ll sing...
Dec 25, 2025
I think people write their best when they’re at their most sane and most rested, and when they feel safe. Any good work that happens when you’re in turmoil happens in spite of that turmoil. You may find yourself writing out of your life experience, and the more life...
Dec 25, 2025
When I was 6 I didn’t have nothing. I never saw a guitar, I didn’t know what it was. What I would do is go and strip the screen wire off the windows. You didn’t have air conditioning or no electric fan, and those mosquitoes in the Louisiana bayou are big enough to...
Dec 25, 2025
You have to know what your theme is for each project and what it is that you’re whispering into people’s spines. I believe your spine responds to music in a way that it might not respond to visuals. That sound can reach inside you in a very primal way. I like to...
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