I think there are times when a song can be a spiritual experience - just making music, in general, is pretty much that.
I think listeners are hungry to hear quality.
When I started performing, I played acoustic music, partly because that way you don't have to worry about interacting too much with other people creatively. Asserting myself in that way was not really a strong point for me.
One of the great things that I loved about doing solo - which I ended up doing because I was too shy to ever try out for bands back in the day - I could sit there with a list of songs and 'paint away' for the show.
I grew up listening to AM radio in the '70s and hearing all of that great soul and rhythm and blues music, which definitely influenced the way I sing. But singing gospel has made me a much more humble person. There are so many people who were geniuses who only a few people knew about when they were alive.
I've noticed more people coming to shows and I've had a feeling that they were from a part of the culture I haven't been able to get to before, younger people. I think on iTunes they've been experimenting with my songs and the digital radio world has been very kind to me.
I'm confused that there is a lack of faith in listening to and deciding what is a great song and instead going for these formulaic, bad songs over and over again. But that's what happened when people from beverage companies bought record labels and radio stations as opposed to people who love music owning record labels.
I don't fight my ability to sing sad songs: it's what I am good at, so I must be built for that.
You have this life in this body, and it's really fragile. But what you have inside is what you have to offer, and it's just as important as anyone else's.
I have a strong belief in creativity in humans. It's our biggest strength.
I come from probably many generations of singers because my grandmother had a really incredible voice and sang in church. And my mother had a gorgeous voice and was always singing around the house.
I'm a big James Baldwin fan.
One thing I liked about 'Silver Bell' is that I barely knew how to play in the tuning I was writing in, and I just went for it anyway.
If you're working on ideas, and you don't know what they are, keep working on them. You don't know what they'll be.
A lot of things drew me to Texas. One is the wilderness: It's pretty close to wide open spaces, which I didn't grow up around and I love. You don't have to have a lot of money to have a view: The view is the sky, and it's everywhere.
I love Texas itself. The landscape is remarkable. The combination of cultures here is incredible. And the history here is pretty remarkable, too, going back centuries.
I have been told that I have been played at - my music's been played at funerals, deaths, births, weddings. Weddings, I find very surprising.
One of the things that I have learned in the last few years is to stop being so damn critical of my own work.
Personality-wise, I'm much more suited to be in a band and part of an ensemble than I am to lead. I never have been comfortable with the leading thing.
I love getting to be onstage with so many great musicians.
