Gospel music is so ingrained into my bones. I can't do a concert without singing a gospel song. It's what I was raised on.

I've never been accused of a felony. I never spent time behind bars except for a few overnight jail times back in the Sixties. [But] I think there's a little bit of a criminal in all of us. Everybody's done something they don't want anybody to know about.

That was American Recordings. I said, I like the name, maybe it'd be OK. So I said, I'd like to meet the guy [Rick Rubin ].I'd like for him to tell me what he can do with me that they're not doing now.

When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself.

I like to sit on the front porch of an old cabin I built in the woods and just listen to the birds; I like to fish in the pond and I always throw the fish back.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

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