Both my parents worked, so I was home alone a lot, and I would listen to their records. They belonged to the Columbia House record club, so they had records!

When someone tells me what he or she was doing the first time they heard a song of mine, then I've done a good job. If my song becomes about your life, then I'm successful.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

Barbecue sauce is like a beautiful woman. If it's too sweet, it's bound to be hiding something.

When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.

You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common.

The loss of Jerry Garcia feels like the end of an era in the same way it felt when Elvis died and John Lennon was killed.