The direction is going the right way for respect for aboriginal people in North America, and all we can do is stand up and say, 'Please do it faster.'
I asked Bob Dylan to paint the album cover for 'Music from Big Pink.' He said, 'Yeah, let me see what I can come up with.'
In Americana, the facts and the dreams seem to be all the same to me.
When I was 14 years old, I had the opportunity to meet Buddy Holly. I asked him how he got that big, powerful sound out of his guitar amp. He said, 'I blew a speaker and decided not to get it fixed.'
The Band was rebelling against the rebellion. The rebellion went to a place where it became too obvious, too trendy, like you were just following the pack. So it was our choice to get off the bandwagon - no pun intended - and do things that were in our background and what was the most honest thing to do.
I love the idea of having a kid who says, 'Yeah, of course I knew about Billie Holiday and Johnny Cash when I was nine years old.'
The kid at 9 or 10 who knows who Billie Holiday is... that's the coolest thing ever.
There's a bookstore in New York where you could buy scripts, and I got addicted to them because they were easy, quick reads... and the pictures were so vivid.
The road has taken a lot of the great ones: Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Janis, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis.
I never really had a teenage experience. I went from childhood to maturity, and in some ways, it short-circuited me emotionally.
I think the world of Chuck Berry.
Chuck Berry told me if it wasn't for Louis Jordan, he wouldn't have probably ever even got into music. That Louis Jordan changed everything and made him want to become a musician.
People go through periods when things are dark and cloudy, and they talk dark and cloudy.
My mother told me when I was a toddler and in the crib that they would have music playing, and the thing when I lit up was boogie-woogie or something out of the Louie Jordan period of sometimes big bands, and then all kinds of things.
I've been really fortunate that I've been at a lot of critical crossroads in my musical journey. When I look back, there are some pretty interesting things to look at.
I am fascinated by the places that music comes from, like fife-and-drum blues from southern Mississippi or Cajun music out of Lafayette, Louisiana, shape-note singing, old harp singing from the mountains - I love that stuff. It's like the beginning of rock and roll: something comes down from the hills, and something comes up from the delta.
Music isn't necessarily made to last, and there's always been disposable music.
Some music is supposed to be disposable; that's OK. A lot of music is fun for today, but it isn't supposed to be timeless; it's supposed to be trendy.
You don't stumble upon your heritage. It's there, just waiting to be explored and shared.
At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums... ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'
