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LEO:

I visited Faulkner's grave recently in Oxford, Mississippi and it was not all it's cracked up to be.  I've heard and thought that myself, that such a thing would be especially moving or, at the least, entertaining.  But -- and if you've read any of Faulkner's books you'd expect more of him than your usual corpse -- nothing happened.  I was telling my friend T-Bone Burnett about this visit and my disappointment and he said "Well, he's dead, you know."  Which only made it apparent that T-Bone missed the point entirely.

[Leo plays "Rings" -- with an unusually jazzy solo between verses].

LEO [to soundman]:  

Let's cut back on the reverb out there in the room.

[Leo plays "Jesus Maria"]

[The following monologue appears to be an excerpt from an unidentified interview with Leo outside of the concert venue]

LEO:

Most of the people that I know who play started playing at a time in their lives when they lost something and I think a lot of music is generated, a lot of imagination, or products of the imagination, are generated out of a sense of loss.  

And for me, there was nothing better than losing whatever town I'd been living in for the last two years.  I loved to leave.  The biggest thrill I could think of was getting out of town and -- even better -- out of state.  From the time I was five or six, as far back as I can recall.   And I was always listening to something, I was always playing something, and I took that with me.  

So I don't know if it relates to moving around, but it sure does relate to whatever I have for home.  Music for me is a sense of place.  It's what I hear in other people's music and it's what I look for in mine.

[Leo plays "Shortwave"]

[Leo plays "Eight Miles High"]

[Applause]

AUDIENCE MEMBER:

Little Martha!

LEO:

I'll do that.  That'll happen.  I'm a pig for that song.  It's one of the great guitar tunes.  Also, I love this thing.  This is the one that I stole most of what I know about right-hand technique from.  It was written by Pete Seeger, who has recorded some amazing instrumental stuff and it's some of the least recognized of the things that he's done.  He has a way with rhythm that is highly original and infectious and unbeatable and I've never heard anybody -- including Pete in the last I don't know how many years -- do stuff like this.   I asked him if he was going to do any more of it and he basically said no.  

This was when I met him in New York.  He was doing a benefit for some vanishing country somewhere and I went up to him afterward.  And I said "Hello," and he said "Where's your guitar?"  "Uh, I don't have my guitar, Pete" -- I call him Pete -- and he said "Well, you should have brought your guitar, that's what this is about."