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Taking you back to the very beginning of your career, you started out as a session guitarist. What prompted you to start performing and singing on stage?
ÌýWell, I had always done that, but the session work had been so lucrative that I'd put all my energies into that. I'd still play at weekends, playing the clubs on Saturday nights, that sort of thing.

Were you aware of the great archive of music that you were working on at the time or did it all pass you by?
Ìý No, I wasn't aware of it at the time. Now when I hear it all, I think that was quite an era in music. Nobody knew then that it would have the impact that it has now. The Beach Boys stuff for example, was just great. We got to play on everyone's sessions in those days.

In fact, if someone was to have a copy of everything you've ever played on, it would be the best record collection in the world...
That would be a big one all right! You know, we played on The Monkees' session, we did Sinatra and Dean Martin, I was a Beach Boy for a while too. It was just crazy. I even played and did the chord sheet on the Irish Rovers' 'The Unicorn'.

What was it like working with Brian Wilson? Did you think some of his techniques were mad?
I remember on 'Good Vibrations', he was sitting around doing the electronic slide board effect. He must have spent at least an hour just playing around with it, asking everybody what they thought of it. We totally went with it though, it sounded cool.

A lot of people associate you with the work you did with Jimmy Webb as well. How did that liaison come about?
We were doing a Janet Dean session in the studio and I saw this album on the wall with 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' on it. I was homesick at the time, I hadn't been home for about three years. I thought it was a great title too, but I didn't know whether it was referring to a bird flying out of the ashes or what. I played it on the way back to Arkansas, where I'm from, and I was so damn homesick it just floored me. I didn't particularly like the guy's arrangement of it though. I then made a beeline to find Jimmy Webb and get every song he'd ever done. I thought 'MacArthur Park' was just a genius record. You know we're all born with talents, but people like Jimmy Webb and Brian Wilson have a double dose of it.