Pastoral Resources

I could have done a hundred songs, really. It was hard to narrow them down, because I tried to pick songs for the most part that actually did have some effect on me or influenced me in the past.

He's written some great songs. I thought that 'Blues Man' was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.

Probably some of the songs I never even really listened to the lyrics. Half of them I'd hear off the radio and was probably singing the wrong words and didn't even know it.

I must be careful not to get trapped in the past. That's why I tend to forget my songs.

A lot of times songs are very much of a moment, that you just encapsulate. They come to you, you write them, you feel good that day, or bad that day.

Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't.

This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them.

That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me that I didn't even know was there until I let it out.

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I'm washing the dishes, driving to the store and walking down the aisles. The ones that you sing when you're driving in the car and as a singer you always go back to them.

My songs are really never titled. Sometimes I call it one thing. then I change it.

I think there's nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock 'n' roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs.

My songs are like my kids.

I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14 - to meet women.

Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience.

As yet, the Negroes themselves do not fully appreciate these old slave songs.

I heard the Bloc Party record Japan before it came out in the UK as they are on the V2 record label. I think it has a great vibe and has great songs. I also think the Kings of Leon are right up my street.