I like playing on stage, don’t get me wrong.

Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. ‘Don’t bother us with politics’, respond those who don’t want to learn.

It was all about music, about getting your friends to come and see you play. I don’t see that same intimacy happening very much today.

It wasn’t so much of a controlled effort to end up as part of the Goth scene.

I really like Alan Jackson, in Country Music. I think he’s really very, very talented along with George Jones, and Merle Haggard, the same old favorites.

American Idol has taken over my whole life.

I’d like my records to reach as many people as possible, but I’m also thinking in terms of how I can keep from getting jaded or unhappy with the process.

If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children.

To me, the positive thing about it was we were pulling out these old influences like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges that were gone.

When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character.

I was actually very into all of that seriously and I didn’t really want to be carryin’ all of that over, the street life, into the studio.

The hardships that I encountered in the past will help me succeed in the future.

It is a career that can be enhanced or destroyed by success.

But if by some freak of history communism had caught up with this country, I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail.

Because people are going to want to hear more of the genuine rock ‘n’ roll. The acts I see today, they’re not rocking and rolling.

It’s one thing for the people in the industry to know who you are, because they’ve heard about you earlier. I have friends calling me from the Christian bookstore because there’s a poster on the...

I listened to a mind joint, and I wanted to do my own version of it, and what you hear on my mixtape is my take on what the whole CD sounds like.

Just this morning, out of a large memory for songs, and having been obsessed by them since childhood, suddenly, at the age of 84, I thought of a song I hadn’t thought of in over...

Good things happen when you meet strangers.

People out there must be told about the self-loathing that follows rape and how it’s the greatest breakage in divine law to mutilate themselves, as I have done.

All I can do is leave it in God’s hands and hope that my fans feel where I’m coming from.

I felt that, in retrospect, there was a time in the late Seventies, after I had a string of hits and successes, as a performer and a recording artist, that I wasn’t saying anything.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Everybody knows what’s going on. Even if they don’t watch it they know what’s happening.

There’s so much talk about the drug generation and songs about drugs. That’s stupid. They aren’t songs about drugs; they’re about life.

And I said, ‘Why not? It’s the truth! Why can’t I say I’m a Beatles fan?’ I used to get criticized for that.

I play a percussion instrument, not a musical saw; it needs no amplification. Where it’s needed, they put a microphone in front of the bass drum. But, I don’t think it’s necessary to play that...

But I’m a historian. I wasn’t interested in just being a producer, I was interested in doing research and presenting that research to a general public.

No time to marry, no time to settle down; I’m a young woman, and I ain’t done runnin’ around.

I was still in school at the time and Cab was very popular and everybody was doing Cab Calloway so I did.

I never going to satisfy everybody, so I decided to satisfy myself.

I might have played a little bit more in Europe than I have in Japan.

At first I didn’t dig country.

Disco B still rolls with me now. He’s still doing his thing. He does clubs in different places. He was very instrumental in helping me perfect my craft.

If you don’t have it in your part, leave it out, because there is enough missing already.

I just remembered songs my grandmother taught me, and songs that I learned for the recordings. But, then I learned to speak Italian. When I was there, I hired a professor who stayed with me...

I was upset with Delbert, because there he was going again and pushing me out in front, without asking me.

I did the Ed Sullivan show four times. I did the Steve Allen show. I did the Jackie Gleason show.

That’s why I hate to get started in these jam sessions. I’m always the last one to leave.

After wrestling with myself for six months, I began medical treatment. During that time I started a band with some friends of mine called Jack’s Car, but that didn’t last.

Yeah, the industry has always been both the enemy and the best friend of the artist. They need each other. That’s the bottom line.

People from Farm Aid have approached us about shows. We’d never done it. So part of my pitch to the band is that this IS farm aid.

All flowers in time bend towards the sun, I know you say there’s no one for you, But here is one.

In some types of music I’m working out all the chords one bar at a time – the whole structure, because it’s about that. And there are other pieces which are really about – okay,...

I mean I like pop music, and I like heavy music and, stuff that I like… the band I’ve signed on to our label right now; they’re called The Sounds. They’re kind of like a...

Well, Darrell is a stunning musician. I mean, he plays anything. The only thing I’ve never heard him play is a fiddle, and I bet he could.

I was married when I wasn’t quite 14 and had four babies by the time I was 18.

I think there’s always a call for people who are bucking the norm. But I don’t expect it to happen now because I think that more than ever the entertainment industry is trying to serve...

It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.