01/13/2026
My man James!
"What I say to myself before I go on stage is that I'm the right person to be here now -- you know, that this is my job. The performance that's about to be given is my performance and nobody else can do it. And I just sort of get into a frame of mind where I'm fated to do it. It's sort of like Zen archery -- there's the target and I'm the arrow, and there's the space to be covered between the two of us. Sometimes walking on stage becomes an out-of-body experience. I start to come around the guy wire that's holding up the backdrop, and the curtain and the monitors are on my right. The stage manager is holding up his hand with the headset on, waiting to tell the spotlight operator to hit me, and the house lights are out and the audience is beginning to make some noise. And then the stage manager points at me -- the spot hits the corner, and I come around the corner, and every step is like it takes...a vision of myself rises about three feet out of my body. I purposely go into a song that's familiar to me -- it'll either be "You Can Close Your Eyes", "Sweet Baby James", or "Riding on a Railroad" -- something that I can sing if a lion is chewing my foot off. And by the time I've done a couple of numbers, it's cool, you know. I can always be drawn forward by the music and become excited, but I try to keep myself a little cool." - Stereo Review, January 1978.
