I knew Fred since I was 14 and was first going to the Old Town School, Fred used to work part-time in the store. Every time I wrote a song Fred would turn on his really good high-class tape recorder, reel-to-reel, and record it. So he's got recordings of me on guitar singing all my songs in his apartment long before I ever recorded for a recording company. I never found out what happened to the tapes.

On the first day of school, my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that from thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education.

This is a new point in my life, and things are totally changing. But like the sunsets I saw on Tybee Island, the miles I've already gone are going to stay with me.

I still remember "the mighty Cros" [David Crosby] visiting the ranch in his van. That van was a rolling laboratory that made Jack Casady's briefcase look like chicken feed. Forget I said that! Was my mike on?

I went to a radio station on Long Island in 1982, and thank goodness for me, it was so new that there was no receptionist. So the DJ opened up his booth, and took my tape and listened to it and thought it was a hit song.

You take all the experience and judgment of men over 50 out of the world and there wouldn't be enough left to run it.