As a kid I took violin lessons from a woman named Charlotte Rosen. She was a violist, but who’s counting? I loved it for a while and then spring would come. What I really loved as a kid was running and playing stoop tag (a Manhattan game). Then I got a bike and was gone until the seventies. But when I went to college I started writing songs. I wrote songs on an electric mandolin for two reasons: I knew how to tune it, and electricity was available.

The songs I wrote formed the basis for my work as a professional songwriter (no place for a lady); and ultimately my work as the front man for Katz and Jammers— a five-piece band. On a good night we would get paid five hundred dollars. We never had a good night.