Now somebody will ask me, Pete, how can you prove these songs really make a difference? And I have to confess I can't prove a darn thing, except that the people in power must think they do something, because they keep the songs off the air.

Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches.

I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear.

Every time I'm in the woods, i feel like I'm in church.

To live you have to experiment, to have the ability to experiment you have to have confidence, to have confidence you have to be loved, to be loved you have to love.

It's a terrible thing being a patriarch. I don't even have a gray beard. But people keep calling me up for advice.

Work in nightclubs was interesting. There were interesting people and places, but by and large, the commercial music experience.