Quotes

[on Hank Garland] He'd work a country session for Stonewall Jackson during the daytime, then go out and play astounding jazz in a club at night. And he wrote one of the all-time great country instrumentals with "Sugarfoot Rag". That's the first I heard of him: playing "Sugarfoot Rag" on the Opry, just driving the folks wild.

Hank Williams was my mentor, really. He said to get your own style and do it with authority. Some people didn't get it, but I understood what he was getting at.

I started playing the bass strings as they made more impact--especially when amplified--but you had to have a strong riff or melody, and that's what I did. And I played it with authority and feeling.

My dad had an old guitar and he showed me two or three chords, so I practiced them and sang to try to emulate my cowboy heroes Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Then, when I was about ten or 11, I learned that you could play "up the neck", so that kept me busy for another couple of years.

One of my biggest contributions to the music business is not singing.

I had a distinctive sound that people could recognize, and I stuck pretty much with that. I'm not one of the best technical players by any means; I just sell the best

About "Rebel Rouser," : It was a good title, and it was the rockest rock 'n' roll sound. It was different for the time.

A lot of guys are more skillful than I am with the guitar. A lot of it is over my head. But some of it is not what I want to hear out of the guitar.

When 'Raunchy' hit, Lee said, 'You need to go home and write something. We need to cut an instrumental. He said 'Write an instrumental' so I did.

Lee Hazlewood had recorded "everybody that could hum a tune by then".