The principle is competing against yourself.

I heard black people sing and the emotion was overwhelming to me. The power of that with all the built in sorrow and joy was just overwhelming to me as a little kid. It was the real deal.

I grew up wanting a guitar, my family was very poor. When I was fourteen my mother bought me a Gibson ES 125 thin body. That was a bunch of money in those days - $125.00.

If I was an actor, it would be like a part that was me. It has to be real to me. I have to make it mine. I really enjoy taking a song I feel that way about, and sometimes it can take a long time to come up with just the right touch. I think that's really my greatest talent, interpreting.

I always had a hard time with Nashville. I reluctantly live there. I've mellowed, and it's improved some, in the fact it has more immigrants. There's some real Mexicans there, some folks from India, some of this and that. I'm not satisfied at all with living there. It's a dilemma for me.

I will be a missionary in a remote village at some point.

I notice guys playing the piano playing a part up here and a part down there, and I wandered why couldn't I do that on the guitar?