Of course, I love the arenas; there's a great deal of energy and excitement playing those kind of shows. But there's something that's very intimate and very special about a small venue, where you really feel like you're almost getting to know everyone in the audience.
Lari White
It's not an uncommon event for artists and labels to part ways - Patty Loveless, Vince Gill both did - and it often happens for the better.
I encountered on a regular basis rude comments and sexual innuendo and cat calls and overt sexual propositions in professional settings.
It's a great thing not trying to make music for a label but just for the love of music again.
To make a label change is a difficult time because there is that lag period between the product you had out and the next project you're going to make on your new label.
Now that I'm married it's hard to be away from my husband, the house, my dog. But I really love being on the road.
If there's any profit to be had in Nashville-Underground, it's very long term. We're not about money, which gives us an edge over the labels.
I love a beautiful, soaring, singable melody. But what really draws me to a song, at the end of the day, is the words.
I never thought I'd be able to say 25 years about anything, really, much less be a recording artist for 25 years.
To willfully harm another human being goes against everything I believe in.
I definitely would have liked to stay at RCA and have had that relationship, and had them grow with me and support that.
If things are just gliding along easily and there's no real obstacles or hurdles, those typically aren't my most productive times, personally or professionally.
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.
I really felt like it was a dangerous trap to get into, having had such great success with 'Wishes,' it just wasn't in my blood not to play it safe and just do that again.
I'm not a mainstream country artist, and I never will be.
I could never really see myself being a pop artist.
I feel so fortunate I was able to grow up in such a warm, loving, safe, beautiful community that I still call home.
Leaving your old record label doesn't have to be a stall in your career. It's like new life being breathed into it.
I'm not interested in artistic records for the sake of making artistic records where they're so cool no one listens to them.
I had this fantasy vision of what a career as a musician was like. And then I grew up and actually got in the business and realized, it doesn't often work that way.
Music does communicate across language and racial and religious and philosophical barriers. It is one of the most distilled forms of human emotions.
It didn't take very long for me to feel like the country radio box was a little too small. So that's what 'Don't Fence Me In' was all about.
I kept getting these little messages through friends: 'Chuck Cannon thinks you are really cute.' And, 'Would you go out with him?' It was just like high school. It was really funny.
I went to college to make music and study music.
I'd always wanted to be a mom. Actually, being a mom was always my top priority. It was like, 'I'm going to be a star and I'm going to get done with that and then I'm going to go be a mom.'
I think I'm the last person on the planet to use the internet, but I'm re-engaging my fans through Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, doing the whole social media scene.
I would love to go to England, Europe and especially Australia. I have a real fantasy about playing in Australia; I would love to get over there.
I have had such a satisfying career; I've gotten to do so many amazing things as an artist.
Unfortunately - as I have experienced first-hand, as many artists have - there's a gaping hole between platinum and non-existent. There's no in-between.
Looking back, I wonder where my head was at on some of the last few albums, and I know I was just doing what I thought I needed to at the time.
I made my living as a theater actor before I got my record deal.
As a little girl, I remember thinking how great it was going to be, to be a musician when I grew up, how I was going make a jazz album, then a country album, then a rock album.
Music is like church to me. It's as spiritual a connection as I just about ever make.
Anytime you get attention for something, you want to keep doing it.
I found when I started getting serious about writing music, that my writing was country songs. It was basically country subject matter, country melodies and simple chord changes.
That's the ideal to me - to make music that is well-crafted and sophisticated technically, but has a soul and a heart that touches a lot of people.
Getting up in front of an audience is my biggest motivation.
There's nothing better about being a musician than live performing.
They love soul music in the U.K.
It used to be that labels would spend two or three or four albums developing a new artist before they threw in the towel and moved on, which kind of gave the artist an opportunity to grow.
No one would ever have heard Marcus Hummon's version of 'Cowboy, Take Me Away' if he hadn't recorded it on the Sampler. I would have heard it because I hear him sing all the time, but no one else would have been able to enjoy it, and now they can and will be able to for years.
The most difficult part is just to get heard.
I've gone gold. I'm very excited.
One of the things I liked so much about the women artists I saw in Nashville was that they were appreciated for their music and their talent, not because they were wearing skimpy outfits and showing a lot of skin.
I studied classical piano from the time I was 4 through my first year of college.
I studied jazz in college. I studied music history, and I have a degree in music engineering.
I love music with my soul, but I'm also a student of it, so it's very important to me to earn the respect of my peers, my fellow musicians and producers.
I was not ready fresh out of high school to hit the streets of Nashville.
The biggest impact that acting and theater had was, of course, stage presence, but it also had a big impact on my writing.
I really wanted a No. 1 single from my first album, but I would not do anything different. It was real and honest and I didn't pretend anything.
