It's more in retrospect as I've thought about it over the years and look back at what I wrote, how I wrote things - like there's a song that Ralph Stanley later recorded with me that he had guested on my record what was called "Travelers Lantern" that I wrote as basically, you know, a hymn.

I tried to pay some small tribute to A Man and a Woman (1966) with the recurring musical theme.

I always knew about as a kid, knew that that particular injury at [my grandfather's] finger had been caused in that disaster that killed his brother-in-law, my grandmother's brother. And he never talked about his own brother's death to me. My mother told me about that and told me about the impact on her family. And that's part of what you hear in the first verse of "Miner's Prayer."

I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear the son of God discloses. And he walks with me, and he talks with me. And he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

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

No compression or as little as possible - that's how you get a good recording.

I don't regret any of the musical decisions I have made.