There ain't nobody I'd rather have alongside me in a fight than my mama with a broken bottle in her hand.
Hank Williams
If you think I'm a drunk, you shoulda seen my old man.
You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly.
If you're gonna sing, sing 'em something they can understand.
I'm nothing but a drunkard. Why do people expect me to be anything else?
Folk songs express the dreams and prayers and hopes of the working people.
To sing like a hillbilly, you had to have lived like a hillbilly. You had to have smelt a lot of mule manure.
In this business, if you're a success, there's some folks who actually worship you. I have been to some places where it's impossible to walk across the stage without having the major portion of my outfit torn off for souvenirs.
I think I'm good enough to play and sing.
There ain't a man livin' who hasn't talked to his dog.
My mother played the organ in church at Georgiana, and I sat on the seat beside her.
I learned to play the git-tar from an old colored man in the streets of Montgomery. He was named Tetot, and he played in a colored street band.
I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself.
Somebody got the idea nobody didn't listen to my kind 'a music. I told everybody on the radio that this was my last program. 'If anybody's enjoyed it,' I said, 'I'd like to hear from 'em.' I got 400 cards and letters that afternoon and the next mornin'... They decided they wanted to keep my kind of music.
I wish I was back at WSFA making twelve dollars a week. At least then, if someone come to see me, I'd know they were coming to see me. Now I reckon they just want something from me.
I've just signed a contract to make records in Nashville. It won't amount to much at first, but after a year or so, I will really be in the money.
I have noticed that these pop bands will play our hillbilly songs when they cain't eat any other way!
The way I feel is that if you don't like folk music, stay away from my shows.
You booked him, and you didn't worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God.
I don't know one note from another.
Personally, I cain't stand classical stuff, but I don't tell the world about it. I just turn the radio off. Now, why cain't these folks who don't like my kind of music do the same?
It makes me mad to hear these popular orchestras make a jammed-up comedy of a song like 'Wreck on the Highway.' It ain't a funny song.
I have been living in Montgomery so long that I call it home.
If anybody in my business knew as much about their business as the public did, they'd be all right!
Man, it's hell to have a wife who thinks she can sing, and she can't.
