Ry Cooder for me is a master, a great master that has a wonderful feel for Cuban music. He's also paid tribute my talent a bit, even though I don't know half of what he knows.
The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.
I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice, theory, humanities. And nowadays, music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more.
For me, I can only do that from my own experience with people I've known and things that I've lived and experienced. That's what good pop music is all about, pop music that does reach out to people. It's very personalized and very real, honest and sincere.
I just lived it and did my own thing without looking over my shoulder. I think I'm very lucky, considering when I started everything, and the fact that I have a masters in music, and I've always worked in music, and that's what I wanted to do.
I started in high school to be interested in music and from there, I decided to study in college. Yeah, you're right, I did start late, but luckily, because of my schooling, I picked up a lot of ground pretty quick.
A real active music set, based and really concentrated on what the music's all about. That's what I'm all about - singing and a really good strong music set.
If you write songs and if you write music that's very sincere and very honest, it's pop music, but it is pop music with a lot of honesty and a lot of heart.
With this new album, I prepared for it a long time, and I was happy with the songs and the production. I felt that I proved myself with the first album, and with this new album, I just want to share some of my music. And that was always my feeling and my intention.
Geez, I wish I could tell you I had a whole bunch of '80s hair bands, you know something you really wouldn't expect, but I don't know that the music police would be that surprised, because most of the stuff that I am influenced by is in evidence in the music.
