I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.

I kept talking to my producers at Columbia about recording one of those [prison] shows. So we went into Folsom on February 11, 1968, and recorded a show live.

I would take songs that I'd loved as a child and redo them in my mind for the new voice I had, the low voice.

I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian.

I used to sing Bill Monroe songs. And I'd sing Dennis Day songs like songs that he sang on the Jack Benny show.

I'm thankful for a pair of shoes that feel really good on my feet; I like my shoes. I'm thankful for the birds; I feel like they're singing just for me when I get up in the morning... Saying, 'Good morning, John. You made it, John.' I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down. I'm thankful.

Sam Phillips asked me to go write a love song, or maybe a bitter weeper. So I wrote a song called, "Cry Cry Cry," went back in and recorded that for the other side of the record.