In the early days, Porter Wagoner would not exactly scold me, but he's say, 'You're writing too many damn verses. You're makin' these songs too damn long.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, but I'm tellin' a story. I have a story to tell.' And he'd say, 'Well, you're not going to get it on the radio.' If I start writing a song, I'm writing it for a reason. People would say that I had to have two verses, and a chorus, and a bridge. I tried to learn that formula.

Writing is a spiritual practice in that people that have no spiritual path can undertake it and, as they write, they begin to wake up to a larger connection. After a while, people tend to find that there is some muse that they are connecting to.

As a loyal believer in the Auteur Theory I first felt editing was but the logical consequence of the way in which one shoots. But, what I learned is that it is actually another writing.

The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it's simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.

I am a member of the Muskogee people. I'm a poet, a musician, a dreamer of sorts, a questioner. Like everyone else, I'm looking for answers of some sort or the other.

Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever.