I come from a school of people, folk singers, and the tradition there is troubadours, and you're carrying a message. Admittedly, our job is partly just to make you boogie, just make you want to dance. Part of our job is to take you on a little voyage, tell you a story.But part of our job is to communicate the way a town crier did: It's 12:00 and all is well, or it's 11:30 and the whole Congress is sold. It's part of the job.

The greatest thing is the internet and that means that anybody, you have just as much access as I do. And you can make your little tape and work on it and work on it until you got it the way you want it. And then you can put it on the net. And if it's any damn good somebody's gonna notice. That's happened over and over again now. To me that's good. That's good access that isn't controlled by the companies. I think that's a great thing.

Jimi Hendrix could play better than our best guys and he did it while he was dancing while being completely outrageous.

[Calling you a] star is just a trick. It's like a straw man thing. They [people] set you up just to knock you over. It's bull. You avoid it, I avoid it.

There's a site on the internet that swears up and down that I'm worth $46 million and that I'm one of the most highly paid and richest guys in show business. I really wish it was true! Then there's those where it's like my mother was raped by a martian and that kind of thing. National Enquirer-type stuff. They just make it up.

Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow, sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow.

The people who run record companies now wouldn't know a song if it flew up their nose and died. They haven't a clue, and they don't care. You tell them that, and they go, Yeah? So, your point is?