You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day.
When it stops being fun, stop.
Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.
I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.
When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing.
By the time I did that third solo album, I'd finally learned how to do it, but I'd also learned that I liked being in a band.
Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.
When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.
Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already.
If music became extinct now, I don't know what I'd be good for.
Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.
When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.
I have always been a sucker for the big, upbeat chorus.
I've always stuck with Gibsons. I've had Guilds and Fenders, too, but I always wind up going back to Gibsons.
We're kind of defined by our mistakes.
I'd better be on the road, or I'll be going nuts. I'm not the kind of guy who sits around with a pipe and slippers watching soap operas.
I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.
I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there.
Les Pauls work out real well for me because I'll beat the hell out of them and they'll still work. The only trouble with them is finding good ones.
I soon gave up instruction for self-teaching.
