For some reason I`ve been labeled that and it`s fine, but there are a lot of other artists that sing real traditional stuff, so I don`t know why they picked me. That`s what I`ve always done.

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

I really was a fan of his and always have been - his writing especially, you know? I think people a lot of times overlook that part, because he kind of got into that party character so heavy.

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.

My mother kept asking me, `When are you going to do a gospel album?` And I`ve always wanted to do a gospel album. Everybody was going on about it, so mom started hounding me more.

I didn`t realize until I was older what a huge music fan my daddy really was, and actually that my grandma played banjo at one time, and I didn`t even know that until a year or two ago.

I just always remembered that, not that it pushed me to be a singer, but I don`t know why he said that. Hee Haw was a big part of my life, musically.

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.

Hee Haw was probably my biggest exposure to live music at a young age, because there wasn`t any live music around my town and no one in my family played instruments.