Well, the songwriting thing didn’t happen for me ‘til much later because all I wanted to do was play guitar and records and when I was 13, 14 and 15 I played on, like, all of the Spinners records, Marvin Gaye records, Smokey Robinson records and I was – and I’m sure you remember a group called The Funk Brothers. Okay, well, I was sorta not one of the Funk Brothers, but I was sorta the group right after that. And The Funk Brothers, because they were Motown, they weren’t able to work for Holland-Dozier-Holland when they left Motown. So I did all the Holland-Dozier-Holland records like Put it in the Want Ads and Band of Gold and all of those kind of hits and then I would still go do some of the things at Motown. And to my credit, which I’m so excited, The Funk Brothers gave me a credit at the end of their movie just because I used to hang out with, you know, James Jamison Jr. and all those kinda guys.

But it wasn’t until I met Stevie Wonder and he called me to be in his band and I was about 17 is when I first started writing songs. Because he was writing songs in the hotel room all day, every day. And so, I said, “Well, I outta be able to do that,” you know? So that’s when I first got the inkling that maybe I should compose and do some other things. Stevie Wonder’s records, he played all the instruments, like, Music for My Mind and the Talking Book album. You know, he couldn’t play the guitar, which gave me an edge up. So I got to play on his records, but, you know, that’s him playing the drums, the harmonica, the keyboards and everything. So since I learned to compose from Stevie Wonder, you know, he took me into the studio and showed me how to layering instruments and so that’s where I got that concept of layering the instruments myself.

Also, what also helped me to that is I couldn’t get anybody to help me at 3:00 AM in the morning when I got studio time. So there was just literally no one else around, so I had to trial and error certain things and I wasn’t such an egotistical guy that, you know, if the piano part really demanded more, then I’d wait and get one of my friends to come in and help me out. And so, I just stuck to doing the things that I felt that I could do well. And there’s no order to how I would record first or no order to how I would write the song first. Sometimes I’d write the song on the guitar. Sometimes I write it on the piano or sometimes I just write it in my head with the lyrics first and then try to find music, you know, to fit the lyrics. And same with recording – sometimes I put the guitar down first. Sometimes I put the drums down first or sometimes I put the keyboard down first. It’s just whichever one I felt comfortable on at the time or what I had an idea for completely through at the time, I put that down first. Then I start to layer on top of that.

I think my favorite part is song writing because that is where everything starts. The guitar part doesn’t mean much unless it’s on a great song and what you’re singing about really doesn’t mean much unless it’s on a great song. And I really admire some of the newer artists and the rap singers and all that kinda stuff ‘cause they really help keep, at least my catalog alive, you know? A lot of people now decide, “Well, we don’t wanna learn how to play. We don’t wanna write.” Fine – don’t. Use my songs just put your lyrics on ‘em and everything will be fine. You know, so it’s actually really made the catalog last a whole lot longer than anyone had expected, you know? But I think, for me, just creating something from scratch that didn’t exist before and hearing it come back is probably the happiest times of my life.