I had been on the road for a long time and was not really getting anywhere. Bob Johnston, a friend of mine, had taken over Columbia in Nashville. He asked me if I wanted to come down. I did – thank God I did.

As in the case of California, the wolf is at the door of America and the present administration acts as if it’s a pussycat. America cannot maintain the present entitlement programs and support a government this size and keep on living on a credit card.

My next project will be a Christian album, another one. I wrote the songs for the ones you’re referring to, but I want to do some of my old gospel favorites. That’s what my next album’s going to be.

We didn’t have a garage to rehearse in. We had to aggravate the folks in the house. But I got a chance to play in a beer joint, and that’s how it started.

I just feel such freedom to do whatever. If a song’s seven minutes or ten minutes long, then so be it – it’s that long.

Marry somebody you love. That’s the whole thing. And continue to love them.

A friend of mine, that I had known for some time, came up one day with an old guitar. I don’t know where he got it, I don’t know how long he’d had it, but he knew about two chords on it. He proceeded to teach them to me, and then we proceeded to go crazy over music.

He may look dumb, but that’s just a disguise.

Well, I just can’t play the game anymore. I’m 63 years old, and I’ve been in the business for 40 years now. I take good advice and direction really well, but I don’t need somebody that finished college two years ago to come in and tell me what I should be recording.

There’s a lathered sorrel stallion running through the Joshua trees and a young man in the saddle with his coat tails in the breeze. He’s got a six gun on his right hip and a rifle at his knees and he’s dealing in a game that he can’t win.