Words matter. These are the best Keith Whitley Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Songs I do have to strike an emotional chord the first time I sing them.
Lorrie came along, which is the best thing that ever happened to me. Because of her, I straightened up my life.
We had sold a lot of copies of the ‘Miami’ album without being racked by some of the big distributors.
I thought everybody had to drink to be in this business.
I was about 14, and I got hooked on the music of the Stanley Brothers.
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.
It’s not so uncommon for me to get so wrapped up in a song that I cry several times when I sing them. That’s the difference between my music and some of the other folks.
I feel like I have to create the Keith Whitley sound. That doesn’t mean I can’t borrow from the people I grew up listening to, but it doesn’t serve any purpose to sing the same kind of songs they sang. When you do that, it’s going to come out sounding like an imitation, whether it’s meant to or not.
The whole deal with my music has been the emotional quality.
I don’t remember ever not singing. It’s just as natural as breathing for me.
Shortly after I started in bluegrass, Ricky Skaggs and I got together and the bluegrass career just snowballed. Being 15 or 16 and making good money playing music was pretty attractive.
I learned to love bluegrass, but my first love stayed hard country.
You may not hear much bluegrass on the surface of my music, but I feel the emotion I put in a song comes from bluegrass. Bluegrass taught me to interpret a song, not just sing it.
I had a rock and roll band as a kid. What I wanted to be in was a country band, but in Sandy Hook, Ky., you’re hard-pressed to find a steel guitar player or a drummer.
For me, the past isn’t deep and dark; I had a lot of fun I couldn’t have had any other way.
My manager, my band members, we’re all good friends. You need that because a lot of times an artist will be so sheltered he will lose touch with what the fans want.
We did the ‘L.A. to Miami’ album, with the song ‘Miami, My Amy,’ which really saved my life as far as confidence goes. It gave me a hit. But it wasn’t really what I was about – and I think deep down inside I knew it, even if I didn’t want to face it.
Most of the things I sing in my songs, I’ve lived.
I’ve played the Opry before.
I don’t remember ever not wanting to be a country singer. Even as a little kid, that was my dream.
I believe in ‘Hard Livin’.’ The song has a lot of potential. I sang it on the road for about a year before I put it on an album. The crowds really seemed to like it.
You have to come to terms with yourself as an artist and know what you do best.
I liked ‘Ten Feet the first time I heard it and it became my first top 10.
Lyrics mean a lot to me, and I won’t record a song unless I can feel it. That’s something I learned from Carter Stanley. Even when he wasn’t perfect technically, he got inside a song and sold it emotionally.
I keep progressing with each record, and that’s a positive sign.
On my first album nobody asked me for a lot of advice. It was a producer’s album. We were sent the same type songs with stock melodies. It was my first album and I was happy to do about anything they’d ask me.
I grew up listening to my mother’s collection of Hank Williams, George Jones and Marty Robbins records.
I learned to do things the way the old-timers did.
Everyone falls in love, everyone gets their heart broken.
Even when I was 3 or 4 years old, I’d go out riding in the car with mom and dad, and I already knew all the songs off mom’s Hank Williams and George Jones records by heart. I remember just sitting in the back seat and singing them at the top of my lungs.
