A lot of people put all that stuff on a pedestal, and they won't touch it. But I don't think that's the reason they did that. I think they played that stuff out of pure joy.

The songwriting has never really stepped forward from the '50's.

Elvis is not so difficult as Johnny Cash because his voice is so distinctive. If you try to copy Johnny Cash, it's just going to sound dumb.

It's not about how loud you turn the amp up. That's not what makes it sound big. What makes it sound big is fooling around with different delays and reverb settings.

I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.

Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.

Normally, you go into the recording studio, make a record and then take it on the road and you think... wow... I could have done THIS to it, or something.

The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.

Veteran performers are dying off, and new acts simply aren't emerging on the national scene.

I basically sat down for a month, with all the Sun stuff I could find and just picked out my favorites. I didn't think that they were indicative of '54 to '57, although I tried to stay within that period.

Mark Winchester has left the band. He's decided that he's tired of the road and just wants to concentrate on his career in Nashville. I don't blame him at all. He'll certainly be missed.

I wanted to go back to Sun. Unfortunately, most of the gear is gone from Sun. The way I take it now, it's almost like a tourist destination. So, it would have been pretty difficult to have brought all the gear into Sun to make it like it was in the '50's.

It is hard to play Blue Suede Shoes. I know everyone has heard it 10 million times, and that makes it even harder to play it, but there's a very laid back tempo on that. I was surprised at how slow it really was.

People out there maybe know who Junior Parker is and some of those Sun Records blues guys.

Don't be afraid to take liberties with this music. Try and put some of yourself into it.

I put a metronome up to all the songs, and I tried to really keep it true to the original tempos.

I'm not God's gift to rockabilly. There's great players out there, and some of them deserve a lot more than they've gotten.

I can't tell you how many people have asked me to show them Stray Cat Strut and that little diminished run on the C. I guess my brain is wired backwards. I don't know what possessed me to do that, but I did.

We weren't afraid to mix some crazy styles into the standard rockabilly look. We also took a lot of different musical influences that were part of that era.

With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues.

To keep creating something with this type of music, you have to take it out of the box.

For every rockabilly festival staged here, there are 10 held overseas.

The biggest challenge for me was Get Rhythm. I don't know why.

A lot of people put all that stuff on a pedestal, and they won't touch it. But I don't think that's the reason they did that. I think they played that stuff out of pure joy.

I always thought when I hit 50 years old that'd be it for the travel. I don't have to tell you - you wait at an airport, your flight's delayed, get on a 14-hour flight, get off, get stuck in traffic, you get to the hotel and the room service is closed.

I like a good pompadour.

I started a big band when grunge was popular. I mean, that didn't make much sense.

If you listen to everybody's opinions, I mean, I always say I'd be digging a ditch on the side of the road now if I had listened to what everybody told me what to do. You know, you have to follow your heart, you have to.

Robert Plant is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, never mind rock star. He's so down to earth.

Rock and roll and swing never quite mixed. Rock and roll came in and just blew everything out of the water. Big bands were dead.

To me, rockabilly music paralleled punk's energy and feeling, but the players were much better.

If you listen to everybodys opinions I mean I always say Id be digging a ditch on the side of the road now if I had listened to what everybody told me what to do. You know you have to follow your heart you have to.

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion.

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.

This joy of discovery is real, and it is one of our rewards. So too is the approval of our work by our peers.

Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.

Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.

And the goal really is to make the audience laugh, to bring them some joy.

Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

Who promised you that only for joy were you brought to this earth?

It's the sense of what family is at the dinner table. It was the joy of knowing mother was in the kitchen making our favorite dish. I wish more people would do this and recall the joy of life.