Quotes from Mose Allison

My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.

I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea. The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.

I'm happy whenever anybody does my material. I don't care what they do with it. I do what I want to with other people's songs.

There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.

So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.

I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.

The idea was I'd never amount to anything in music, The theme there was that I was talented, but I wouldn't work hard enough to do anything with it.

I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me.

At this point, I don't listen to other people too much. I'm not really that affected by anyone.

My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.