I come from a school of people, folk singers, and the tradition there is troubadours, and you're carrying a message. Now admittedly, our job is partly just to make you boogie, just make you want to dance. Part of our job is to take you on a little voyage, tell you a story.

I've met Bill Clinton, Obama a couple of times... I certainly didn't meet George Bush, and wouldn't want to.

I don't collect the way other people do. Some people collect rare guitars, like, 'I have a '54 Strat worth $50,000.' And I don't collect the way Nash does. Nash has Duane Allman's guitar and Johnny Cash's guitar. I bought guitars because they sounded good. I played them, they sounded unbelievably good, and I couldn't resist.

My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it. I felt a calling.

I have learned so many things from my mother about the right upbringing, the right values, value for money, value for elders, for family members. I think these things only a parent can teach you.

In 1992, I critiqued the panic over growing family diversity. My skepticism about the doomsayers has since been proven correct.

I felt they had really moved the characters in a direction that was very interesting. The family had really felt the impact of what had happened to the.

They were two very religious people. My father was a foundry worker and was a daily Mass attender, as was my mother.