The actual work of recording a record or making a film just requires that you consciously block the time out to do that and nothing else. That's what I do.

Country music originates with the colloquial, rural aspects of white America. It's really, truly, rural white America's blues.

The actual work of recording a record or making a film just requires that you consciously block the time out to do that and nothing else. That's what I do.

Ironically, the success I've experienced at country radio has left me ostracized from pop and other formats of radio.

Sadly, I wish I had been able to play ["Miner's Prayer"] for [grandfather]. Yeah, I'll never escape the influence of him in my life. And my - his wife, my grandmother, Earlene Tibbs - those experiences with them shaped me musically probably more profoundly than anything else in my life and shaped me as a writer.

My music is very personal. I've created it in solitude. I face a white wall and beller. I like that sound - the expression of loneliness. That's what it's all about.

It's meant to reaffirm the validity of that music - clean, minimalist, honest, classic music.