Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering "who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?"

The gateway to freedom...was somewhere close to New Orleans where most Africans were sorted through and sold. I had driven through New Orleans on tour and I'd been told my great grandfather had lived way back up in the woods among the evergreens in a log cabin. I revived the era with a song about a coloured boy named Johnny B. Goode. My first thought was to make his life follow as my own had come along, but I thought it would seem biased to white fans to say 'coloured boy' and changed it to 'country boy'.

They're drinkin' home brew from a wooden cup. The folks were dancin' there got all shook up.

Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be.

If the people in the audience are talking, you're being ignored. If the people are gazing at you, you've got something they want to hear.

You know, your ears record. You might can sing a song once you hear it.

All were artists, playing foolish, having fights and making love as if the rest of the world had no racial problems whatsoever.