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Cash – the Autobiography of Johnny Cash

I don't listen to music much at the farm, unless I'm going into song writing mode and looking for inspiration. Then I'll put on something by the writers I've admired and used for years (Rodney Crowell, John Prine, Guy Clark, and the late Steve Goodman are my Big Four), or any music in any field that has real artistry, of something that promises a connection to what's essential in my own music: old blues, old country, old gospel.

Most recently I've been listening to Rodney's Jewel of the South CD, one of his very best, and the chants of the Benedictine monks.

I've also been playing with my Tibetan singing bowl, which has its own wonderful world of sound. It's made of seven different kinds of metals - gold, silver, brass, bronze, and metals from the meteorites that land intact on the mountain peaks of the Himalayas, where there's less atmosphere than anywhere else on earth to burn them up before impact.

The bowl produces the most amazing variety of sustained, unearthly tones. It comes with an instrument, wrapped in chamois leather, resembling the kind of pestle you use to crush corn or rock salt in a mortar. You rub that around the rim - how fast and hard you rub determines the pitch and intensity of the tone the bowl produces - and then you put your face down into the bowl and listen.

It feels like hearing a pipe organ in a cathedral.

It's a wonderful tool for taking me to another, more peaceful place.