- [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".
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