Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
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'm building my fan base around the fact that here's someone who does things a little differently, who brings other musical influences into country music, and you never really know what she's going to do next.
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.
That's the beauty of country music - you have to get out there and earn it and work hard. And when you're on the road with big name acts, you realize there's no easy way to the 'Promised Land' in this business.
I do know that country music is driven by the songs. I think there's probably a core of what the material is about, which is family and love and the ups and downs of life, and I think that resonates with people.
You know how country music stars get an extra 10 years on their life when they go to Branson? Like you're washed up, and you go to Branson, then you can last another 10 years. That's what bashing the media does.
I've liked country music for as long as I can remember, especially the songs of Dolly Parton. Her lyrics are similar to mine: simple, expressive, from the heart. Our voices are in the same kind of register, too.
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.
The NRA isn't a boogeyman organization behind a curtain. The NRA is made up of millions of people who believe in the Second Amendment and the organization is very closely connected to the country music community.
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?'
I kept hearing all these rules: 'You can't say that in country music.' 'You can't use that kind of beat.' I became so frustrated. It may have slingshotted me, in a rebellious way, toward doing something different.
I've definitely received a lot of support in Nashville; it's a huge music town. I like country music. Like any genre I'm largely unfamiliar with, there are elements I really enjoy and elements that go over my head.
The reason I moved to Nashville was because I was reading biographies of a lot of my country music heroes, and I thought it would be better to actually go where the history was, as opposed to just reading about it.
As a little kid I had a girlfriend, and her boyfriend used to beat me up, so then I used to sing these songs, and that's what it's all about. Country music is all about your heart and your people and things like that.
I worked in every format - pop, hip-hop, and alternative. I did a national sports show. When I finally got to decide what I wanted to do, country, to me, is the most authentic. I grew up on country music my whole life.
There's a lot going on in country music, with indie-label hipsters and underground bloggers arguing their interpretations of what country is, and pop-country stars defending themselves. That deserves to be poked fun at.
Roger Miller opened a lot of people's eyes to the possibilities of country music, and it's making more impact now because it's earthy material: stories and things that happen to everyday people. I call it 'people music.'
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.
In country music the lyric is important and the melodies get a little more complex all the time, and you hear marvelous new singers who are interested in writing and interpreting a lyric and in all form of popular music.
We have a history in country music of writing about the darker side of things - maybe not as much in modern times, but there's a lot of cheating and self-deprecation. We sort it out in song, in country music, as a genre.
One of the reasons I wanted to do a show about Nashville in Nashville was because when I lived here, the hardest thing to go out and hear was country music. Country was taking place inside the studio and it was an export.
I was really only around country music on the radio, and I think because I grew up so close to Atlanta, and R&B was such a big part of that culture, by proximity I think a lot of that music influenced me without knowing it.
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 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.
I grew up very heavily involved in a United Methodist Youth organization. I grew up going to church camp for years. I ministered, and country music stole me away. It was just where my heart wound up. It's what I wanted to do.
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.
It's kind of odd when you think of Loretta Lynn, when she was first traveling and recording country music. It was all built through word of mouth. If you pleased the fans, they would pass it around to their friends and family.
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.
I'm not the only one who has ever lost somebody; I'm not the only one who was missing somebody. That's what I love about country music, that's what I love about songwriters, is being able to put out those words, those feelings.
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.
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.
Venues had segregated seating - but when Chuck Berry fused together blues, boogie-woogie and country music, it caused people not to be able to sit still. They bounced up out of their seats, knocking over ropes, dancing together.
It's quite interesting that in my growing up I had several influences. We had gospel music on campus. R&B music was, of course, the community, and radio was country music. So I can kind of see where all the influences came from.
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.
We could say that people who eat grits, listen to country music, follow stock-car racing, support corporal punishment in the schools, hunt 'possum, go to Baptist churches and prefer bourbon to Scotch are likely to be Southerners.
We were so influenced not only by country music but by the rock bands of the '80s. Our focus was to bring in something different. Country music already had a George Strait and Alabama. We wanted to put some pop music in our show.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.'
I just love where I am right now in my career. I love country music. I don't ever feel restricted by the genre. I've been able to have a solid career that we've built one step at a time and a family. I know that I'm in a good place.
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.
I, in middle school, started really, really liking country music because it tells a story. It's really dramatic; I'm really dramatic. There's a lot of emotion. It was like, 'This is a perfect fit,' and I was teased mercilessly for it.
There is a bit of a movement as far as younger people in country music. That is cool because people are saying things like, 'I didn't listen to country music until so-and-so came along.' And I'm like, 'Yeah! Now you know why I love it.'
My dad used to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and my mom liked Michael Bolton and Roy Orbison. She was pretty big into country music, too. So there was a wealth of music being played in the house, and I kind of took it all in.
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.
The big stadiums get totally packed, and everyone knows the words, and it's screaming young girls. I met a whole bunch of great Nashville musicians, and they accepted me in their community. Classic rock and country music go well together.
Someone might look like an overnight success, but there's a lot of hard work that goes into it, and rightfully so. That's the way it should be. There are exceptions to that rule, but in country music, people really have to pay their dues.