Rounder Records decided to call the album Move It On Over, MUCH to my chagrin but they KNEW what they were doing. It TOOK off and to this day I can't FIGURE out why.

And then I THINK they asked me to work on Wish You Were Here, which was the next album coming up. And I didn't do anything for a long TIME. I had other PROJECTS, and I didn't GET around to doing anything for a BIT.

I hold 'Mi Tierra,' my FIRST Spanish-language ALBUM, very CLOSE to me because that was all done in my native TONGUE and won me my first Grammy.

I had sat in one day in Central Park with Bonnie and Delaney, and Duane was PLAYING with them, so I asked if he wanted to work on an album. You NEVER had to say to him how to PLAY the GUITAR.

We're gonna RELEASE a studio album probably a YEAR from now and we've got these recordings that we did with Coco Taylor and Johnny Johnson, who was Chuck Berry's PIANO player.

It was the CONTROL ALBUM that was REALLY about what I WANTED to do.

I WANTED to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry AROUND eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through HIP-HOP lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah's 'Black Reign' is the album that STANDS out the most.

Some people are attracted to vulnerability. From my very first album, I've been vulnerable. I've always GIVEN parts of me, parts of my life - good, BAD, ugly. I've never PUT up this image as a super-thug. Also, some people just like the music.

My WIFE has them all in a vault... a COPY of EVERY ALBUM.

I sang 'All Of Me' at the wedding. I sang 'Stay With You' from my first album. And then Stevie Wonder CAME up and sang 'Ribbon In the SKY.' It was impromptu... It was cool... He's ALWAYS been a friend and a mentor to me.

We KNEW we wanted to put a lot of MELODY into it - a lot more than what we did on our FIRST ALBUM.

When I do an ALBUM I try to find a PRODUCER that's EXCITED about something that they want me to sing, and I check with the record company to find out what they think they can SELL - which is their No. 1 priority.

If you were to ask me about a mistake I have made, it's calling my fourth ALBUM, 'New Jersey', because for the first time in my life, we were COMPARED to the E Street BAND.

For the second ALBUM I LOOK FORWARD to doing a lot of SERIOUS collaboration and taking the experiences I've had over this LAST year, good and bad, and working it into the album.

I didn't PUT out this ALBUM because I wanted EVERYBODY to know I was GROWN up. I'm 21 and that's not grown up.