Twenty years from now, will we listen to Lady Gaga? No. She might think she is making a stand for the freaks and the weirdos. But they're not going to have any decent music to play, are they?
Along the way, I've had different advice from different music producers. I've been told to tone it down, that the quiet parts of my voice are appealing and there's harshness to the loud part of my voice.
The Zombies were really unique - they had elements of jazz and classical music in their songs and songwriting. They had a very, very different sound compared to a lot of their contemporaries at the time.
I used to go to soul nights because I loved dancing, and so did my friends, and we loved the music. We used to go listen to black American soul.
People in England were coming up to me, saying, My mother and father turned me on to your music. This happened to me 20 years ago. When I was 40 they were saying that.
Those albums are so important to me because, for the first time, I was making my own music, paying for it, finding strengths in it, and going through the process of finding the right music for the record.
I was really lost for a while in my teens. I was angry. But when I found music - Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell - it was a new discovery. It was a door to this other world where I wanted to be.
The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.
Chuck Berry told me if it wasn't for Louis Jordan, he wouldn't have probably ever even got into music. That Louis Jordan changed everything and made him want to become a musician.
When I came here it wasn't that I was anti-Music Row, but it was like I was going against the grain of what everybody on Music Row was doing, and that's what has made me successful.
Find people who think like you and stick with them. Make only music you are passionate about. Work only with people you like and trust. Don't sign anything.
I'm still trying to make it. I'm still trying to get this over and do it and hopefully leave some kind of a mark on the course of American music, particularly in the tradition of what you might call the singer-songwriter.
That's what I so admired about Johnny Cash and June Carter. Their music wasn't a big influence on me. It was their character, their individual styles, what they were like as people. They weren't afraid to stick out.
This is just the way it goes: there's always a cycle with music - it goes up and it goes down, it goes risque and it goes back, it goes loud then it goes soft, then it goes rock and it goes pop.
One of my problems is I'm not really sure if I slot into rock or not. I've always tried to combine world music, folk, jazz, blues and rock, and have done since Traffic.
I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.
I still have a passion for the music, which is such a beautiful thing. I still wake up in the middle of the night out of a dream and have a melody in my head, and run to my piano.
Music is shared. It's a shared feeling; that's what music is all about. When you listen to a song with someone else, it becomes more than just a song. It defines relationships.
There are a lot of women at my gigs. The first show I headlined was a sea of women, which I can't complain about. I'm pleased these 18-year-old girls like my music.
I really like Alan Jackson, in Country Music. I think he's really very, very talented along with George Jones, and Merle Haggard, the same old favorites.
Country music was the music I was brought up on. It's the music that's closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it's always been a big influence on my own songwriting.
