I did a production of 'Journey's End ' an RC Sherriff play about World War I at the Edinburgh Festival. I was 18 and it was the first time that people I knew and loved and respected came up to me after the show and said 'You know you could really do this if you wanted to.'

Bluegrass has brought more people together and made more friends than any music in the world. You meet people at festivals and renew acquaintances year after year.

I met Prince William at a musical festival and he let me know he was a fan of my music. But the invitation to sing at his wedding reception came completely out of the blue. The fact that Kate and William knew the words to my songs was very touching.

I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals and fairs and karaoke contests and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.

I'm a person who likes these sort of movies... sad but moving 'art movies' that normally are at a festival and then they go to a small art house theater and disappear.

Now there are so many movies so many festivals and so many awards going on each judged with each other like your work is worse than others and that's not fair. How can you tell what's best and what's worst from these awards? We're talking about art.

So where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?

Medical knowledge and technical savvy are biodegradable. The sort of medicine that was practiced in Boston or New York or Atlanta fifty years ago would be as strange to a medical student or intern today as the ceremonial dance of a !Kung San tribe would seem to a rock festival audience in Hackensack.

I want to be safe in the knowledge that I can tour and play festivals for a long time. The main thing is that I want a good reputation as a live performer. If I have that I'd be so happy.

I'm launching my own festival in South Wales. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. It's going to be held at Margam Park because I wanted the venue to be as close to my home as possible.

My real fantasy if I was to drop out would be to live in a mobile home and be a hippie and drive around festivals and have millions of children - children with dreadlocks and nose rings - and play the flute.

Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects rather an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.

The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.

In New York I'll walk down the street and someone will say 'Nice show ' and that's it. If I'm at a food festival it's open season.

Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement is the holy of holies of Jewish time. It is that rarest of phenomena a Jewish festival without food. Instead it is a day of fasting and prayer introspection and self-judgment when collectively and repeatedly we confess our sins and pray to be written into God's Book of Life.

The frustrating part of it is that you're generally known for what you did last. I've had the privilege of doing some very cool independent films that a lot of the time the general public doesn't see unless you're at a film festival or you're into that kind of movie.

A couple of months ago I was down in Florida for the Food and Wine Festival. And this journalist grabbed me and said 'How does it feel to be a TV guy? You're no longer in the restaurant business.' And I laughed. I asked him 'How long do you think it takes me to do a season?' He said 'Well 200 days.' And I was like '200 days? Try 20!'

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.