Gibson ES 125 was a real instrument, this was in 1956. I started learning; I had a vision of a sound.

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've refined it since [ was living in Beaumont, Texas], but I was just obsessed with the guitar. I remember one day sitting in class and it just came to me how the neck worked. I was enlightened to the scales, and the runs. I just saw it and thought; now I understand it!

I did admire the comments and the music of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. And that didn't fly too well in the Deep South. It was not quite redneck enough.

I had admired Waylon [ Jennings], but I never expected to meet him and get to know him. When I finally moved to Nashville years later, one night I went to a Harlan Howard Guitar Pull thing, and there was Waylon. He started talking about how much he loved my work and how great I was, and I couldn't even get a word in.

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.

51 Martin [guitar] sounded pretty good as new guitar. Martin has several levels of guitars now, and this one is pretty good.