I'm the father of three daughters, and they're all highly trained professionals. Two of them are mothers, and the other one wants to be at some point.

Sometime in the early Seventies, gender-free toys were briefly a popular idea. So at Christmas on the California beach in 1972, we downplayed the dolls with frilly dresses and loaded up Santa's sack with toy trucks and earth movers for our three daughters.

Our daughters were coming of age during a rising consciousness about gender equality. Throughout their school years - from kindergarten through graduate school, 1972 to 1992 - women were starting to take their places in areas traditionally reserved mostly for men.

My hope is that we would begin to have a dialogue in this country about the importance of civility. We can have strong differences, but it does seem to me that most of the country believes it's gone to critical mass in what I would call the professional class across the political spectrum - left and right.

I titled the album Reflections because I am reflecting on my music career.

Music is not a very stable business. It comes and it goes, and so does money, but your education stays with you for the rest of your life. When you have that education, and you have nothing to fall back on, you can get a get a job anywhere.

Media wants to know everything. We are in this industry: we have to get used to it; we are still getting used to it. So I have no complaints. They are doing their job.

When you are in this business and this career, it's hard for any one thing to engulf you.