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.
