Other people want a career or success because they think that will help them find their personal life somewhere. I've done it the other way around. What I have is what everybody else is looking for. I know I've got it made. I know I'm a very lucky man. That came first. Then the music and the career just kind of took care of themselves.

But I think beautiful is simple and elegant, like a ballad with simple harmony.

Long as I remember, rain been comin' down; Clouds of mystery fallin', confusion on the ground; Good men through the ages, trying to find the sun; And I wonder, still I wonder: Who will stop the rain?

When I made Blue Moon Swamp, there was a lot of trial and error; I was trying to find people who would be simpatico with my style, and with what I had in mind for the album.

I'm just made differently. Man, I just love being an American, I love my country. But it happened to me during the Nixon time, especially pre-Watergate, that as I watched Nixon for the first time in my life I felt shame. I had to analyze myself. What is this emotion? I realized that my government was separate from my country. It was the first time I ever felt ashamed of the government, not the country.

I loved Western Swing and Hank Williams' music, and I now know that it's a 6th tuning that gives you all of those classic licks.

I've studied a lot of great people over the years - Pete Seeger, James Brown - and tried to incorporate elements that I've admired, though I can't say I dance like James.