There's not a lot to do in a small town, but i grew up on a cattle farm... some people would say there's nothing to do on a cattle farm, but I'd say there's everything to do.
Ashley McBryde
My hair turned gray when I was 24.
The day Guy Clark passed away was the day we wrote 'Girl Goin' Nowhere.' It was the first day I had met Jeremy Bussey, who I wrote the song with.
I have a soul the devil wouldn't buy.
You have the most fun, and love is best, when it's just wrong enough to feel good.
I've heard that the true love of country music is alive and well. That gives me so much hope and so much happiness.
I love to think on my feet, and I love to be able to feel from a close proximity how things are going.
You never know when the love of your life might just walk in.
There's always going to be people that say you're a sellout - anyone who knew you back when or who wants to begrudge you for having success. That's OK. Their opinion of me, and the box they want to put me in, is just simply none of my business.
I was lucky to grow up in the '90s, when we had just as many strong female artists as male artists. That's a world I would like to live in again.
In college, I was able to be the vocalist for the jazz band at Arkansas State.
I started playing mandolin when I was three or four years old because I was too small to be playing guitar. As I got older and more responsible with holding instruments, I was allowed to play my mom's guitar that she had.
A secret gets bigger and nastier the longer you don't talk about it.
I was four days old when I went to my first bluegrass festival.
It turns out, the bikers and the truckers and people in dive bars are the nicest people in the world.
In bluegrass, there's a lot of joke-telling and a lot of banter between bandmates. It's like improv or watching the 'Carol Burnett Show.'
You should read a crowd like you read a magazine.
I was kind of always the underdog.
Singing 'Family Tradition' with Hank Jr. was a pee-your-pants moment. Hank comes over while I'm singing and puts his arm around me, and my knees nearly buckled. You can put off the fact that this is reality, but when he came over, there was just no denying. I just lost cabin pressure.
Your fame and your success moves much more rapidly than your ability to fund it.
When I was growing up, radio DJs were celebrities, not just the people singing the songs.
I haven't shut up, I think, since I was born. I tend to talk a lot, and I sing constantly, and I know that it can be kind of annoying, but I would say I sound a lot like my mom.
I'm little. I'm pale. I'm not strong. But bad things are scared of me. I think it's because my dad was a preacher growing up, and I was raised in the Church of Christ.
I've been in T- shirts and jeans since I was a kid. I don't have to show you a bunch of my skin for you to listen to my songs.
If you can sing to a room of 60 people who don't give a damn, then if, someday, you're playing to people who really want to hear your music, that's not hard.
I was a terrible student, but I never missed a music class. In fact, I don't even think I attended most of my gen-ed classes, but I never missed a single music class.
I'm just going to do what I do, and people will like it, or they won't.
I have a big love for jazz music. The only thing I hated about singing with a jazz band was having to wear a gown to everything.
I'm 5 foot, 3 inches. Even if I hit you, I'm probably not going to knock you down.
You know me: jeans, T-shirts, boots, all the time.
The thing about bikers and truckers is they're just regular folks, and that's definitely my demographic.
That's what you do with the worst day ever: you flip it on its back.
Sometimes choosing to leave a mistake on a track is way cooler than going back and nailing it.
Being called a new artist doesn't bother me at all.
There's a few people that I write with that we don't stop until one of us cries.
Your love is your love. It doesn't matter whether you're 18 or 68; there can still be someone that makes you feel that way.
Growing up, the Opry was my Hollywood.
I get recognized more for my tattoos than my face.
Every 'no' I ever received was an inch closer to a 'yes.'
Everything I ever needed came out of a radio and a dashboard. My Mount Rushmore of what was cool came out of a radio - Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Mark Chesnutt.
As I got a little older, I discovered Lori McKenna and Patty Griffin and found out how many other tools we have as songwriters, that there's storytelling and there's ear candy, and that there is a place where they meet, too, and both of those women are really good at doing that.
Not everybody is going to like your songs. But you probably wouldn't hang out with those people anyway.
When you see a chick that's not the skinniest girl in the room, covered in tattoos, you go, 'That girl wants to stick it to the man.' But we don't give a damn about the man. At all. We just want to make music.
If you've ever been in a bar with a bunch of old sailors and see a guy that has an eagle tattooed across his chest, that guy has seen some stuff.
I grew up playing bluegrass as a youngster, and I'm happy that I did.
I was lucky that my parents listened to really good music. My dad loved Kris Kristofferson.
I do know where I'm from, and I'm proud to be an Arkansan and to represent country music.
I keep a $2 bill rolled up in every pair of boots I own because one time, an older guy came up to me at a farmer's market I was playing in Memphis, handed me a $2 bill, and said, 'Stick this in your boot.' And when I stood back up, he handed me a $100 bill and said, 'Thanks for listening to me. Stick this in your pocket.'
In my musically formative years, I grew up listening to Suzy Bogguss, Trisha Yearwood, Terri Clark.
Country music is - can be - a loving industry.
