Mainly, when I ran into Emmylou Harris, that was it, you know? We could finish each other's sentences musically, and personally, too. We have a very shared, similar sensibility. And that was a friendship that really opened up a tremendous number of musical doors for me.

I think that Frank Sinatra was maybe the greatest pop singer.

I was never bored because I always had a book. So I had a doorway into another world or another universe. It was great.

I can't sing half as well as Claudia Lennear. Hats off to her, but somehow, things happened for me.

Music is a work in progress. On a record, it gets frozen in time. And it's oddly unnatural.

I first knew Laurie Lewis by her considerable reputation as a fiddle player and a writer of songs. When an opportunity came along to sing with her I seized it. Getting to know her as a singer and a person has been pure pleasure. Her voice is a rare combination of grit and grace, strength and delicacy. Her stories are always true.

When you sing the same song over and over and over again, it stops meaning what it originally meant to you. It starts sounding like white noise, or my washing machine.