It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I used to go to Bourbon Street when I was a kid and there would be club after club after club of people who were around when the music started. I mean these are legendary, maybe not so well known, but legendary musicians.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.

I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.

Music my rampart, and my only one.

Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.

Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.

They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Soul music is timeless.