Judy Henske, who was the then reigning queen of folk music, said to me at The Troubadour, 'Honey, in this town there are four sexes. Men, women, homosexuals, and girl singers.'

Music should be an elective experience. You should go, "I'm going to sit down and listen to some Beethoven, by God," and then you get to hear it.

The essential elements of singing are voice, musicianship, and story. It is the rare artist that has all three in abundance.

I think if the United States gave anything to culture at large in the 20th century, the most important contribution made was the popular song.

Everybody has their own level of doing their music. ... Mine just happened to resonate over the years, in one way and another, with a significant enough number of people so that I could do it professionally.

I believe in the empirical wisdom of science, just to start with, so I hope that there might be some treatment out there that might be helpful.

If you don't have story to tell the public at large - you have to be able to sort of go listen.