I was always drawn to the roots music, bluegrass, blues, early rock - Sun Records, Elvis [Presley]. And I still love that music to this day. Memphis never gets the credit. It's much more musically rich than Nashville ever will be. Nashville manufactured that hokey-hillbilly image way back.

I was made to go to church and I heard the gospel songs, and every now then somebody would come through with a guitar and that was a thrill!

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.

My favorite record I've ever done is Rock Salt and Nails. It was recorded in '68-'69 and released in '69. There's something about that record I really like.

The song [The White Trash Song] was not a put down of [ my country cousins ], but a celebration. I wrote that early on, as a teenager.

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 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.