I worked there [on Pontiac] three weeks, got really sick of it, went back home and joined the Air Force.

I've always explored various areas of society. And I love the young people. And I had an empathy for prisoners and did concerts for them back when I thought that it would make a difference - you know? - that they really were there to be rehabilitated.

Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time. Usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above that black dirt.

Could it be the girls and boys are trying to be heard above your noise?

I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.

What I said, what are you [Rick Rubin] going to do with me that nobody else has been able to do to sell records with me?

One day, I just decided I'm ready to go. So I went down with my guitar and sat on the front steps of Sam Phillips recording studio.