I started learning my lessons in Abbot Texas, where I was born in 1933. My sister Bobbie and I were raised by our grandparents [...] We never had enough money, and Bobbie and I started working at an early age to help the family get by. That hard work included picking cotton. [...] Picking cotton is hard and painful work, and the most lasting lesson I learned in the fields was that I didn't want to spend my life picking cotton.

Sometimes there is a 36-piece orchestra going off in my stomach.

When you're singing, you're using extra muscles, and it requires a lot of exercise and breathing. You can't do that if you're a sissy. If I have any fitness advice for people, I'd tell them to sing more. It's good therapy, too.

Biodiesel seems to be the answer to a lot of our prayers. Not only can it help the U.S. economy, our unwanted dependence on foreign oil, and the gasping environment, it could also help the family farmers out of this tragic dilemma they have found themselves in through no fault of their own.

There's a lot of money in selling marijuana. If you can do it legally, that's good. Why should all the criminals make the money? This is what people are thinking. If it's happening, if it's going to be legal, let's tax it and regulate it, like we do with everything else and make some money off this. I think that's one reason why people are talking this a little more seriously.

The first time I got onstage was when I was about 5 years old. It was at a church social, and I had a poem to recite.

Nothing lasts forever, but old Fords and a natural stone.