Today's recording techniques would have been regarded as science fiction forty years ago.

I like to work with people who have a sense of putting a song over, and can sing in tune, and with passion. With technology you can polish a turd, but there's still no button you can press for passion.

I make records with an open mind, I always have.

When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father's guidance. Thereafter, my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.

The ukulele was the first of many instruments they had bought for me. They got me a guitar when I was eleven, which my son Morgan uses until this day. They paid for 3 years of guitar lessons; they bought me a bass fiddle, which I still play.

The object is to make a great record and you have to do whatever it takes.

Every time I meet the CEO of a record label I tell them how they did it in the seventies because they want to know. I tell them, "Sign a hundred people! Throw it against the wall and see which ones stick!" And they frown and say, "Oh, we can't do that!" and they start mumbling about demographics and this and that.