Everything you do in life is up to you. Part of life is realizing you have much more potential and ability than you'd ever know, but it's up to you to face the fears and unleash that which really drives you.

The principle is competing against yourself.

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'm playing a D-28 Martin that I've had about 20 years or so. I've got a '51 Martin and I thought I shouldn't be taking this on the road. So I went down to Gruhn Guitars in Nashville and kind of traded around and ended up with this one. This guitar sounded pretty good as new guitar.

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 may yet move [from Nashville], and where would I move if not Texas or New Mexico? I couldn't afford a home in California. I need to travel out of there occasionally.

Music saved my life a few times because I could play the stuff rednecks loved. They thought I was great and they wondered why I didn't do that all the time.