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.
