LEON RUSSELL

I had a whole bunch of bad country songs, so I put 'em all on an album.

I think probably my main advice to new artists is if you want to be in the music business, you need to be dang serious about it because it's a rough business.

I often haven't heard the music since I've recorded it. I don't listen to it. When I do hear it, like at someone's house, I'll listen. I'm probably the most pleased with the stuff I did with New Grass Revival.

I'm always having people come up to me and say I saved their life - but I don't remember it!

I was on the road with Jerry Lee Lewis when I was 15 - I can't imagine not doing it. That's what I do.

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 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.

I used to play on Phil Spector's records, and he liked to use three pianists.

I am happy with what comes, I don't have expectations of any stature.

I scarcely talk to reporters at all.

I remember reading 'Catcher in the Rye,' but I don't think I got it.

All my writing takes place during the recording of the master tapes. I never do have songs when I start up an album. I actually write them while I record.

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.

Apparently I was a Billboard top touring act of 1973, but nobody told me.

I started writing rather late in the game. I was fascinated about the story about how Bob Dylan, for 'Nashville Skyline,' wrote between takes. So I'd try to sing new songs off the top of my head. I had rather less than spectacular success on that. But a lot of my songs were done that way.

I got this book called 'How to Write the Popular Song.' I read that and went through all the things they suggested, and I learned how to do it.

I'll work as long as I can. I'm happy with my life.

There was a period in my life when I was trying to write standards: songs that everybody recorded. I did a pretty good run of it.

I started out playing 'Chopsticks.'

I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.

I was afraid of the press.

My whole family's been involved with music, and it's been so since the minstrel days.

I belonged to the Columbia Record Club, and that's where my records came from. For some reason, I was in the 'jazz' category. I got Benny Goodman records and Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, and that kind of stuff. I really was not a jazz guy at all, but I knew some of those names.

Words have been the most difficult thing for me. Melodies have been the easiest for me; I have more than enough melodies to go around.

I've always sort of been at odds with radio programmers.