My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.
I've been around so many people for so long that I take great delight in my own company.
When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.
We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing.
I've seen beautiful art on the sides of buildings. I've seen beautiful art in museums. I've seen beautiful art in galleries. Beautiful art is everywhere.
I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.
I'm wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it's MTV and radio, well, they're great things, but can't be the only thing. I don't know that it would work even for the Beatles.
I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.
If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.
People have the right to say what they want to.
This is about black people selling out other black people.
This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.
What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other.
When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.
All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.
We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at.
I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him.
As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine.
It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about.
I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.
