Top 270 Country Music Quotes

The only two shows I watch are ‘Walking Dead’ and ‘Nashville,’ but both just went off the air for a couple of months, so I feel like I have to be productive because I’m not sitting around waiting for the next episode of zombies or mainstream country music.

On ‘American Idol,’ I felt like one of my challenges was picking songs because I’ve definitely been exposed to a lot of music. So when I went to pick songs, it was difficult for me to choose, but I’d always go to country because country music is so memorable.

Country music has taken so many forms, and I’ve always contended that it does not matter if the casual listener falls in love with country music through Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show or whomever – just get in and start digging!

The storytelling in country music is so powerful.

I always want to have the traditional country soul while meeting the new standards of country music.

The song ‘Take This Job and Shove It’ spent 18 weeks on the country charts in 1977. 1970s country music fans had a clearer understanding of the ennui of wage-slavery than modern elites.

I grew up listening to country music. I got into traditional stuff later, but I listened to the commercial stuff of the ’90s, especially the women who were so strong, like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kathy Mattea. It’s a great art form.

People out west love country music.

They say country music stands for more than the rural life. It’s about life, period, whether lived in a high-rise or a hollow. I don’t think rural or urban has that much to do with it.

I’m a country girl; I like country music. That’s what my car radio is on.

I discovered the same thing Gram Parsons did, that soul music and country music are practically identical. Based off of the same chord structures, and the songs are of heartache and loss. The main connection is they both came up in church.

Country music tends to be so sentimental and homespun, it’s easy to stumble into self-parody, but Haggard has brought a freshness to the themes that places him alongside Hank Williams and Willie Nelson as one of the greatest country music writers.

I love country music, but I also love gangster rap.

I laid my country music aside for quite a while… because bluegrass audiences didn’t care to hear it. But it just kept haunting me.

My previous visits to Australia created fantastic memories, so I’m definitely looking forward to another visit. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. I think every person in the entire country is nice. Seriously, I haven’t seen or heard of a mean person yet. And they love country music.

There are so many music genres competing against each other, but I feel like country music has always been a unified front.

Actually, I didn’t listen to country music very much in Oklahoma. I listened to blues and rock n’ roll.

I’ve always wanted to sing country music.

I grew up with the Highwaymen, which was Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. Mom and Dad rode rodeo, so country music was always in the house and the car. They threw in some Dolly Parton, too.

A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth – that’s what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.

When I was growing up, music was music and there were no genres. We didn’t look at it as country music. Popular music in Tuskegee was country music. So I didn’t know it in categories. It was the radio.

Country music originates with the colloquial, rural aspects of white America. It’s really, truly, rural white America’s blues.

Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music – it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I’m really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis – he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn’t impress me.

The one thing I wanted to do more than anything else was sing country music.

At 16, I started really loving country music, and Collin Raye just had the most amazing ballads!

Country music is the people’s music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are.

It’s always a pleasure to perform for people who love country music. And Australians definitely fall into that category. Each time I go back, I learn something new about the country, and I get to see some of the most beautiful places on the planet.

There are people out there who are into traditional country music and for those people you have artists like Brad Paisley and Josh Turner and Alan Jackson. Then you have artists with a progressive style of country music, like myself and Eric Church and Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert.

The whole world has changed much since the ’80’s. In the united States, rap music and country music dominate radio and that certainly wasn’t the case in the early ’80’s.

I have always been infatuated with country music. Country music tells stories, and I’ve always loved to tell stories. I said that when I establish myself as an artist that can do pretty much anything I want to do in music, I’m going to make a country album.

That’s one wonderful thing about country music – it shifts, ebbs, and flows stylistically, unlike pop music.

God-dang-it, country music is my heart.

I was a folk singer who became totally over the edge with country music. I found my voice and style working with Gram Parsons. I learned how to listen to George Jones records and the Louvin Brothers.

I’ve contributed a lot to country music.

I listened to Country music a little bit, but it didn’t enter my life until I started listening to Eric Church.

All I can hope to do is instill great morality in my son and trust him along the way. The music he listens to or how he chooses to wear his hair doesn’t define his moral compass, and if he wants to listen to country music and wear a cowboy hat too, that’s fine.

I definitely see the genre opening up a lot more. I don’t know if black people don’t want to get into country music or what, but I feel like we’re breaking down barriers.

Don’t move to L.A to become an actress – you’ll just be a waitress. Don’t drive to Nashville to become a country music star – you’ll just end up playing empty honky-tonks at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

I got country music in me.

I don’t limit my taste. There’s some jazz that I like and there’s some opera. I’ve been listening to what was essentially country music, but it crossed over to rock.

I wanted to play rocking country music, and when I started out in the late Seventies, it took me a couple of albums to figure out how to do that.

I grew up listening to country music with my dad on the way to school.

Taylor’s first four albums have been certified platinum a combined 21 times, but despite her unprecedented success in country music, ‘1989’ is strictly pop.

I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I’ve ever been in my life.

In the music business, especially the country music business, every 10 years or so you’re going to have this changing of the guard, this wave of new artists that comes in.

I’ve been a fan of old country music, like Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline. I think I’m drawn to it because of the sense of sadness and sort of loss that a lot of good old country music has.

Country music has room for a little bit of everything.

I don’t think it’s changed that much when you go on the principle if Garth introduced more rock into country music, then Florida Georgia Line’s gonna introduce more dance and more beat-driven stuff into country music. That’s just how it’s gonna go. So whatever influences you as a kid, you’re gonna put in your music.

Working in bars back then, in the ’50s, to get a job you had to play all kinds of music. There’d be customers come in and yell jazz tunes at you and yell rock ‘n’ roll tunes at you and polkas and rhythm and blues and country music.

I’ve always stood up for country music.

I’m the first, youngest person in country music to sing at Coachella.

I’m a serious aficionada of country music – Reba McEntire, Toby Keith, Montgomery Gentry. I’ve even written some songs. They haven’t done anything of mine yet. But it’s only a matter of time.

I never expected to record again. I knew I had done everything I ever wanted to do. I was satisfied. But… all the time I’m watching the country music horizon. And I’m sayin’ ‘Lord, is there anybody gonna come?’

Baseball fans! Good lord! I feel like sports fans get mad at you easier than country music fans. It scares me. I’m glad that country fans don’t get mad every time I mess up.

My mother has always been open about all kinds of music and entertainment. She wanted us to see that it was not just country music and the Grand Ole Opry.

Musically, I actually grew up listening to country music as a kid, like George Strait, Alan Jackson… all those guys. So it was kind of weird crossing over from that to pop and R&B, but you know, I love Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, Usher, R. Kelly, Drake, Boyz II Men.

I’m really annoyed by the wave of country music that’s just a list of stuff. It almost sounds like L.A. people writing country music, because it’s just a list of stuff: ‘My pickup truck and my cowboy boots and my Levi’s jeans and my girlfriend with the short shorts.’ It’s so boring!

What we don’t need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn’t.

For me there are two types of country: There’s the shoot-yourself-in-the-head country, and then there’s really good country music.

I’ve seen country music go uptown, like we say, and I’m proud I was there when it happened.

I tend to support and get behind issues instead of candidates, because of the whole ‘Super Bowl’ generalization of our world – You’re on this side, I’m on that side; you’re a Republican, I’m a Democrat; you’re country music, I’m rock music.

The artists in country music who stopped having hits are the ones who were led into something that wasn’t them.

I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music ‘made it’ the same way. It’s all different. There’s no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.

Now that I have better producer chops, a country album is something I want to do one day. I don’t know who’s going to put it out. But when I do, I don’t think people will call it ‘country music.’ They’ll probably call it ‘neo-soul.’

Country music, to me, is what I grew up on.

I was sort of in denial about doing country for awhile but I sort of grew up and realized who I was, what I wanted to say. I think country music is the best music in the world and I’m glad to be doing a country album. I hope people will love it as much as I loved making it.

Listening to country music as a kid allowed my imagination to run wild.

I think it’s pretty stupid to write off an entire genre of anything. It’s one thing to say ‘I don’t like country music.’ But it’s pretty narrow minded to say ‘All country music sucks.’ Of course, that being said, all short-form improv sucks.

Dylan’s relationship with Johnny Cash was the biggest influence on Nashville in my lifetime – they opened up country music.

I believe that if writers want their readers to care about a character, they have to care themselves. I have to root for a detective who screws up as much as Thorne does, who shares my birthday, my North London stomping ground, and my love of country music, both alt and cheesy.

My love, growing up on the Prairies, was country music.

I don’t care what’s happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven’t in a long time.

If I’m writing songs for a country-Western picture, I have to know about country music.

I love traditional country music, and I feel like there’s a need for it and a want for it. But I enjoy everybody in country music.

People would say, ‘Why are you guys in country music? You look like you’re in the Backstreet Boys.’ We took so much heat. We always said, ‘It’s not about hats and Wrangler Jeans. It’s about a state of mind. Country is in our souls.’

Until MTV, television had not been a huge influence on music. To compete with MTV, the country music moguls felt they had to appeal to the same young audience and do it the way MTV did.

I’m always looking to find things that are different in country music.

I’ll tell you, Nashville ruined country music.

My wife grew up loving country music, so I always run songs by her whether I wrote it or if somebody pitched it to me.

I write some country music. There’s a song called ‘I Hope You Dance.’ Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it.

I want to reach the point where people hear my name and immediately think of real country music.

I got to where I couldn’t listen to country radio. Country music is supposed to have steel and fiddle. When I hear country music, it should be country.

Country music is the song that speaks to the American condition. It’s middle America. Eight out of 10 people. Maybe it’s not the No. 1 choice, but they listen to country.

My grandmother loved country music, and she’s the one who really got me into country music. She had George Strait tapes, a bunch of them. I remember listening to tapes, taking them out, the covers and the back.

When your dad is a country music fan and you take long car trips, you become one too.

I think it took me a while to convince Nashville that what I do is genuine and my heart’s in the right place, and I love country music.

When I hear bluegrass today, I hear so many new sounds in it. It’s almost like country music in a way.

Country music is one of those places where we support each other and prop each other up.

I love country music because it’s honest – and I’m a terrible liar.

I love country music, blues, and punk, and one day I might make those kinds of records.

There’s a new hit rock group or singer every five minutes, but with country music, you have one hit and those people love you forever.

I would never do anything that makes the perception of country music worse.

Part of the great thing of looking back on how I went from the cattle ranch to the White House was, I was a country music DJ. I saw Garth Brooks perform for free in 1992 at the Colorado State Fair where I met this person who knew about this graduate school program.

Country music is who I really, really am deeply.

I didn’t want kabobs, Afghan music, and rules that required girls to be carefully monitored. I wanted mac and cheese, country music, and independence.

One reason people are turning to country music is because of that non-music called rap.

I felt like it was the space that I could be the most authentic of anywhere because of how I grew up. Even though some of the songs and some of the texture wasn’t what I like, I felt like country music was more authentic, in general, than anywhere else.

I’ve always liked women singers and appreciate a good story being told. That’s what country music used to do on the radio.

The tastes of country music fans are not limited to the narrow range defined by consultants and programmers and record company moguls.

When I moved to New York, I fell head over heels back into country music and probably ’cause I missed something about Texas.

Me and my dad, we’d go to the dirt bike races every year. I mean we’d go probably too much every year. And he would make me listen to all country music.

And obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some, and went seeking out the original artists, or in some cases searching up country music.

Country music has changed tremendously, so what now is considered country was not considered country at that time. We were doing stuff that probably could have been called country music today, but would certainly have not have fit in at that time.

I hope that country music embraces me because I grew up on it and have a love for the music.

I discovered in college that country music could be fun adding some swing to it.

I’ve never been one for doing remixes. Then I’ve gotta decide which version am I gonna be tonight: country Carrie or pop Carrie? I’d rather just make country music that anybody can get into no matter what they listen to.

Years ago, when I first fell in love with country music, part of the reason was that it was so much from the heart. It was so simple, lyrically, everything. It was just the simplicity.

I like garish things: I like the 1970s and 1960s, and country music – that big-hair look. I don’t go for nudes or beiges. My hair’s naturally black – I bleach it. I don’t go for subtleties.

Well, more than me saying to the rest of the country music industry there is not enough traditional country music – that is not necessarily the statement in truth. I think more so that I, me, missed it more than anything else.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

I’ve liked country music for forever. And Buck Owens is just one of many country guitarists I like. I think Buck’s Sixties records are really progressive.

I’ve definitely grown a new respect for Country music and have more of an understanding of what this music means to fans and what the relationship between the fans and the artist is.

I never listened to country music growing up.

The truth is, I think country music… there’s a lot of great people, and just being raised the way a lot of country boys and girls are, hopefully there’s just a lot of respect.

When youre talking about the genre country music, it used to be called Country & Western music. It plays a pretty big role in that pantheon of country music. Thats the whole reason why those guys in Nashville started wearing cowboy hats and boots back in the day. That didnt come from the South, that came from the West.

My father was a country music singer and a motion picture actor, Tex Ritter, and I sort of had a normal upbringing, except dad would come down in full regalia with the boots and the guns and the hats, and the horse would eat with us. But other than that, it was pretty normal.

We’re trying to do the thing you don’t expect out of country music. Which is to say, ‘Go see the world.’

My dad was a huge country music fan, but he also had a band and he sang. So he’d listen to a lot of music and the songs that he’d learn for the band were more from the male artists. So my earliest country memories were Waylon Jennings, Conway Twitty, George Jones, Johnny Paycheck even.

I love country music.

CNT was a good fit for ‘Nashville,’ and ‘Nashville’ was a great fit for CNT, and so timing was right. You know, they’re investing more in scripted television – the show brought a lot of more eyeballs to CNT, eyeballs that are interested in country music – so, I mean, it couldn’t have been a better fit.

When times are good, we have tunes to dance to; when times are tough, we’re supposed to talk about it. That’s country music.

I don’t mind putting my heart out there for the audience, and for the country music fans… to be vulnerable with them… that’s my job as an artist.

Country Music is great music because it really comes from real life experiences. It is such a great haven for reality.

It’s liberating to wear clothes that are outside the boundaries of what I’m supposed to wear, ya know, based on the traditional model, whether that be a country music singer, or being from the country. It’s not a rebellious thing.

I do know where I’m from, and I’m proud to be an Arkansan and to represent country music.

I feel like I’m like a country music therapist.

Country music is about new love and it’s about old love.

What I loved about country music when I was a kid was the Grand Ole Opry, was ‘Hee Haw,’ was 360 degrees of entertainment.

I do love country music. And a real musician.

When you go to the Opry for a show or hear it on the radio, you get the whole circle of country music.

You seldom hear any young artists in country music.

People forget how great country music is, and we haven’t.

I was one of the very first people to ever do a video in country music.

All the girls over there in Ireland are well versed in American country music. Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline are like king and queen over there.

I’m treating country music like it’s a sport. I’m looking at where my competition is and realized I needed to work on my songwriting.

There’s a longing in country music that can soften even the rockiest heart.

For me, and this may not be everybody, but because I do love country music so much, there’s such a feeling of home in Nashville, especially because it’s such a small town. You bring up one song, everybody knows who wrote it, everybody knows their mother and what their cell number is, and all of the stories.

I love the Country Music Hall of Fame. I don’t think it’s just a hall of fame and it’s not just a museum. It’s a schoolhouse. It’s a place where people from all across the world can come and learn about this great genre that we’re making a living out of.

One of the things that I think is such a constant in country music is that the song is so much a story. I believe it is supposed to be based around a story.

It seems that with other kind of music, they are looking for the next big thing, but with country music, they might be looking for that, but they also want to have that warm blanket that helped them through that relationship or that singer they have always loved.

I’ll never quit playing country music, or at least acknowledging it, always, as the cornerstone of what I am.

To me, country music is like the blues, but it’s something very hip and – I don’t want to say commercial – but it’s very worldly and good listening.

Country music is just country. It’s going to shift around a little bit, doing some different instrumentations, different production styles. But it will always come back to what you heard at the Opry. Nobody wants it to change.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin’ words.

I try to be a good representative for country music. But as a country artist, it’s important to move the needle and make a difference beyond your core audience. But you can’t ever strategically try to accomplish that; then things get weird.

I tend to listen to country music more than Cuban music.

I’m thrilled that country music fans like my stuff, but so do a lot of people outside of country music, people who just love music. My goal is more to reach music lovers than to appeal to a genre. I love country music, and I’m proud to represent it, but I don’t obsess over it as a category.

My biggest turn-on is a fine pair of athletic legs. A girl with a fine pair of athletic legs who is not afraid to show them off. Turn-offs? A girl who doesn’t like country music is a huge turn-off, and girls who don’t take care of themselves.

I love Johnny Cash but I don’t love country music that much.

That concerns me, that we’re reaching out for perfection, when country music has always been about imperfection.

I think the way country music is set up, we all came from a family background.

Country music tell stories. That’s something that I can relate to.

If I wasn’t singing country music for a living, I was actually going to school to be a doctor.

Country music is worldwide – it’s not just Nashville and Texas.

Rock ‘n’ roll entertained my head but there was something about country music that touched my heart.

I respect country music because I feel like it’s more about the talent and the songwriting and I put on a big show and we have a lot of stuff, but I feel confident in myself enough as an artist and a singer that I can have all of those fun toys and know that we don’t need all the bells and whistles either.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn’t think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it – though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, ‘I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.’

It doesn’t matter if you stick the name ‘bluegrass’ on it. I think people call things bluegrass that I wouldn’t necessarily call bluegrass, but what they’re calling country music today I’m not sure that I would call country music. But I love music and I try to encourage people.

I like country music. I’m not going to lie. I’m from the South, and I grew up on it. My dad was a country singer-songwriter, so it’s in my blood, and I love it.

I didn’t know much about him, and I wasn’t a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn’t know a lot about him.

I feel like I found a sound that is unique to country music, in my own lane.

By no means do I want to try to leave country music. That’s absolutely where I want to stay.

If it’s a good song and it fits me, that’s what I’m going to do, I’m not out there trying to change the world. I’m just out there trying to sing country music the best way I can.

For guitar players especially, blues is the foundation of rock and roll. You take country music and rock and roll and jazz and you mix it together, and that’s my basic makeup.

There’s been a shift: Country music is popular music now. Every other genre wants to come over to our land.

Only in country music can you compare an old pickup truck and an old guitar to your wife and turn it into a love song… Thank God for country music.

Well, the things that country music is parodied for sometimes – trains, drinking, sin, cheating, redemption, jailhouses, rambling, hoboing, on and on, all those things – according to The New York Times, every one of those subject matters is still relevant.

I told all my punk friends, ‘If I’m gonna do country music, I’m gonna milk it.’

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

We’ve got great fans that rock and roll won’t have, because you can have a one-hit record and country music used to, not so much anymore and you have a fan forever.

I’ll tell you sort of an odd story: My music taste changed on 9/11. And it’s very strange. I actually intellectually find this very curious. But on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded. And country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me.

I do think that inside of country music now there’s a very silent majority, and I represent that silent majority.

Don’t listen to much country music, you know, but I know a little bit though. My sister listens to a little bit of country.

I never get tired of exploring Americana or country music, and I always have a little bit of a crooner in me that never seems to go away.

I don’t want to put my fate in country music fans; I’m too stubborn.

Country music fans aren’t stupid. I’m not stupid.

I always give a lot of credit to Ronnie Dunn for making me fall in love with country music.

New York City is a notoriously hard market to perform country music in.

‘Lollipop Opera’ is the backdrop to Finsbury Park. A place that is very thriving, interracial and lot of music stores, Greek, Turkish, all sorts of immigrant music. It’s utter Englishness. It blends the Jamaicans, the Irish. It’s like what Jim Reeves did with American country music.

In England, rock music very rarely infiltrates the charts, but country music even less so.

So many girls come up and say to me, ‘I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn’t even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I’m obsessed.’ That’s the coolest compliment to me.

My local radio station, WHOC, Philadelphia, Mississippi – ‘1490 on your radio dial, a thousand watts of pure pleasure’ – it was a beautiful station. And I loved everything I heard. But it was country music that touched my heart.

My music has always been sort of in between categories. Sometimes record stores – back when there were record stores – they’d put my records in the country music section, but other record stores would put my records in the pop or even the rock section. As long as it’s in the store somewhere, I’m OK with it.

I tried to mix country music into my sets in L.A., and I noticed that was when people checked out. And I was like, ‘That doesn’t make sense. The genre that I love the most is the one that doesn’t work.’

Country music especially can get very formulaic – you know, you have to have your verses and a bridge and a chorus, and a lot of the songs are written as just plain and simple poetry on the road.

One of my favourite things about country music is that, at least until recently, you could always count on a solid story, a punchline and a pun. I think it has that in common with hip hop, where they’re not afraid of wordplay and I really appreciate that.

I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad.

I had to make a drastic change at Sun Records and I didn’t really appreciate country music until I went there.

I’ve spent a lifetime in love with country music.

The last thing I want to do is just be another voice on country music radio.

I’m not really into alternative country – I’m into Patsy Cline, who lived down the street from where I lived, and old Dolly Parton records, Kitty Wells and that old stuff. I like country music. I also like Eric Church, who has a great new sound but also holds onto that old sound.

I listen to a lot of really old western and country music. There’s a lot of cool stuff in there… all the heartbreak of the country darkness.

Country music is therapy – it’s therapy for the rural world.

Country music has become the music that best represents the reality of American life.

I’m a huge country music fan, and there are so many girls that I look up to, especially Carrie Underwood, which everyone knows because I’ve shouted it out for a while now.

That internal ache is the starting point of country music. If it’s a happy song and I can still feel sad in it? That’s my favorite.

I’ve never known a day of my life that I didn’t want to sing country music. I really did always know that it was my destiny.

I was obsessed with country music when I was a kid, and it’s definitely had a huge influence on the way I write songs. I was always attracted to songs that had a brilliant pun or a clever turn of phrase, but came from a dark, bitter place. As a writer, I’ve always gravitated towards that feeling.

I think when artists close their ears to any music, when they won’t do anything besides country music or rock music, they get stale.

Alcoholism and country music are both tremendous aids to self-dramatisation.

You gotta ‘be’ country music – you can’t just sing it.

I think the attraction to country music is the fans, the lure of the hardcore fan base.

If I’m opening up for George Jones or playing a complete honky-tonk, I do true country music. But if it’s a complete rock club, I’ll do some country and a little bit of this hillbilly acoustic country metal or whatever it’s called.

I’m not from the South, but I love country music. And country music is really big in the Midwest. Connie Smith came from Ohio. Jessi Colter was from Arizona.

It’s important to realize that everybody who went into country music, and most everybody who went into rock and roll in the ’50s, they had no more goal than a hit on the jukebox. Johnny Cash, from the very beginning, had a goal that he wanted to make music that lifted people’s spirits.

True country music is honesty, sincerity, and real life to the hilt.

I love country music, always have and always will.

I was kind of going that route with my country music. Indie country. Which would work, if I was playing on Americana stages. Unless I had a television outlet like ‘Glee’.

Back when I first started in country music, you did it because you loved it, because it definitely wasn’t where the big money was.

I love country music.

I’m surprised at the loyalty of the country music fan. People that started out with us at ‘Prayin’ for Daylight’ still come to multiple shows a year.

I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’.

I became a country music fan in 1990 when I moved to Colorado. It was my first exposure to it because I’m from a city. I’ve been a fan of country music ever since.

You don’t change country music; it changes you.

Hopefully, people will rediscover real country music. After all, it’s in my blood.

The passion for doing music, the passion that I have for going out and playing it live – my love for country music is back.

That’s why we do this. In country music, we do this for this very reason… to impact people lyrically, to be a part of their lives.

It means so much being a part of country music and the Opry.

There’s a place for all types of country music as long as there is honesty and realness and a real human experience for the fans.

Each kind of generation of bands forgets how they got here. Waylon Jennings came out and they’re like, ‘That’s not Patsy Cline.’ And everyone panicked, like, ‘I don’t know what happened to country music, but this isn’t it.’

I’ve never turned my back on country music.

A lot of people like mainstream country because they’re not given another option of country music to like that’s modern.

I love Florida Georgia Line. I love ‘Round Here.’ So if a fan wants to listen to that, and if a fan that wasn’t listening to country music before is listening to ‘Cruise’ on Pandora, and after that a song by George Jones comes on, they may have never heard George Jones before. I think it’s a good thing for the genre.

I like country music. Sometimes I’ll just type in ‘country’ on Pandora and listen. I really like the passion in the lyrics.

With The Key, it was, I had gone through a divorce and losing my father, and just kinda really reminiscing about how much I loved the traditional side of country music, so I made a record that was really traditional from start to finish.

Plus I love Tanya Tucker and I love country music.

There’s a great enthusiasm for good country music all over the world.

A lot of people that only like country music, they’re not fans of mine.

I wondered how people would take me being a country music singer. I thought about deviating from that and singing other things. But… it doesn’t really make sense for me to try to be something that I’m not.

I think regardless of where people are from, country music is a through line.

Country music was the music I was brought up on. It’s the music that’s closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it’s always been a big influence on my own songwriting.

It is not that I don’t like contemporary country music because I do. I love it. I have recorded a lot and have had great success recording records that have not been very traditional country records.

I remember always looking forward to listening to country music in the car with my mother, and it wasn’t even something I enjoyed in the sense of music, but just being around music itself was enough.

First and foremost, I am most proud of how ‘Hee Haw’ did its part to help pave the way for country music to burst from its regional roots to remarkable worldwide popularity.

Undeniably, I’m a country singer; I’m a country songwriter. But I feel like I make country music for people who like country music and for people who don’t.

I love country music, and I did as a kid.

Country music, like rock or blues, can move over into a lot of different areas.

I am probably the last of a generation able to gain an education in country music by osmosis, by sitting in a ’64 Ford banging the buttons on the radio.

I love Broadway. And, I listen to country music, which I think a lot of people find surprising.

I’ve always liked country music. It’s a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America.

I’ve always loved country music.

I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.

There wasn’t really a song or artist that made me want to be a singer, I think I was always a fan of country music.

I’ve never shied away from country. ‘Karma Chameleon’ verges on country. Reggae and country are very closely linked. If you go to Jamaica, you hear a lot of country music. There’s a correlation.

Bobby Bare is one of the greatest people in country music.

I started rocking and rolling when Guns N’ Roses came out. It wasn’t until Garth Brooks came around that I really got back to country. He made it fun again. To me, in country music, the rigor mortis was setting in and it just wasn’t fun anymore. Garth brought everyone back over to country and made it cool again.

If you got in my truck, you were listening to country music, and that’s the way it was for a long time. I’m a little more open to other sources of music now, a lot more. But for the formative years, I was just very into country.

The industry is always changing, but country music is like a force that always comes back.

Every time I tried writing my own songs, they would come out very country. I couldn’t fight it, and the more I listened to country music, the more I loved it, and it just became very natural.

I think Charley Pride has been one of the best things to happen to country music, to prove it belongs to everybody.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There’s a connection because there’s a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

The word matters in country music, and it always has. And everybody had lived those words in country songs.

To me, country music tells a story about, and deals with, the way people live their lives and what they do.

I don’t sing country music because I’m not capable of singing other kinds of music; I sing it because I think it’s the most beautiful kind of music there is.

If it wasn’t for Kenny Rogers, I don’t think I would be in country music. He was that guy when I was a kid – his music and ‘Hee Haw’ made me perk my ears up and made me say, ‘What is this? I want to hear more of that.’ He was that catalyst for me to start this whole run in country music.

I love country music.

I always respected country music for its narrative and how it’s so solid, you can get the picture in your mind.

That’s what country music is: real.

I’m not really concerned so much with the industry, except in country music, as long as our fans keep coming to the shows and keep buying the records and we keep having success on country radio.

As soon as I got into country music, it was like hook, line and sinker. I was so focused on country, I ended up leaving all those ’80s hair-band CDs behind – which now I still wish I had, but I was done with it.

It’s hard to come across a true country fan in L.A., but it’s true that the fans are so loyal, once you’re in their circle, you’re in for your entire career. It just really speaks to me. Country music has so much soul and is so heartfelt. I think it’s a perfect fit for me.

I like that old style of country music – it seems to me that a lot of the modern country music is rehashed rock n’ roll.

I was exposed to jazz and blues and gospel and country music and rock, and I was the only kid I knew who knew about that stuff.

Guys like me and Ray Charles, when we was coming up through our days, country music and soul music was just a very thin line between the two.

But in those days – in the mid-’50s, early ’60s – there was less than 300 radio stations that were playing country music and a lot of that wasn’t full time.

1983 – Country music had made a resurgence in this country so I joined a country band. I was the only black guy in the band and consequently, usually the only black guy in many of the places where we played.

I was tossed all over the place growing up, which I guess prepared me for the music business, but the one thing that has always been there, that has never ever left me, has been country music.

Country music has always sort of been country music.

People might get mad at my style or my delivery and say it’s not country. But the country music that brought me to Nashville? Man, I will always have that on a pedestal.

I embrace country music because of love, a love of what I came from.