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.

I'm a chameleon. I can change my voice a lot. I always was able to, because in my family's music I was a harmony singer, and harmony singing is really hard.

When I would be on the stage singing, I would see a movie of something that happened, I would be telling the story. I would be describing the story in sound, but my goal would be to make somebody else run their own movie.

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.

When the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby, it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky.

I get on the airplane and there's a screen in front of everything. You get into a taxicab in New York, there's a screen blinking at you. I think it's going to have a tremendous effect on our brains, because those bright, saturated colors and those strong lines, they do things to your brain.

I've got this weird body chemistry that I don't like to get high. I'm not going to say I never tried drugs. I tried most everything. I didn't try injectables. But I didn't like it.