Being sober and clear-eyed changes everything.
Marty Stuart
I believe in the future of country music, but a future without roots is like a kite with no string.
Well, I've always said that country music has always shared a very unique relationship with gospel music - the hooting and hollering, you know, always in abundance.
One thing that I love about country music, probably more so than any other culture - maybe the blues rivals it - there are so many American folk heroes. There's the Coal Miner's Daughter, the Man in Black, the Red-Headed Stranger, and on and on.
There was a junk store in Nashville on 8th Avenue, where I bought Patsy Cline's train case for $75.
I went out on the road when I was 12 years old, playing with the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers. That was the summer of 1972. We played Pentecostal churches, camp meetings, George Wallace campaign rallies and bluegrass festivals. As a kid, I had grown up watching quartets that were very entertaining.
The stories in our music form a special viewpoint on the story of America in the 20th Century.
If I go into the Mississippi Delta at pitch black midnight and put on a Robert Johnson record, it's hard to sit in the car because it's pretty powerful.
The four things a hillbilly singer needs are a Cadillac, a Nudie suit, the right hairdo, and a pair of pointy-toed boots.
I started out in gospel music. A lot of people don't know that I started out in gospel music, and I've never lost sight of it.
I don't have many regrets in my life. But I have one. I would have stayed sober all along.
Every time I hear a Garth Brooks record I tend to want to hear James Taylor.
When I started making some paychecks, I didn't invest in stocks and bonds - I invested in American culture.
Walking into the Ryman with Lester Flatt was the equivalent of walking into the Vatican with the pope.
As big as the industry is now and as gargantuan and stretched out with as many buses and trucks as there are now, it is still a big old dysfunctional family in my mind.
Going back to the Byrds and 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo,' when country was kind of getting away from the fiddle and steel aspect, it took some rock & rollers to introduce a new generation to it, and it kinda put some things straight.
The history of country music is as important as any other art form.
The only two jobs I ever had were with Lester Flatt and Johnny Cash.
From the first time I played with Lester Flatt, I sensed an extreme amount of history around me.
Unconditional love goes a long way.
In the middle of Mississippi, so many kinds of music came, but it was Nashville and country music that pulled my heart.
Sun Studios was where so much of American music exploded from.
If you look back into the Superlatives' body of work, we've always included instrumentals.
Addiction is a crazy disease. It's a progressive disease when it's not dealt with; it don't care who it takes, and it takes it all. You wind up losing your house, your home, your reputation.
I love old-time music, I love country music and I love the American music that we have to offer the world. And any part of that is fine with me, as long as it's pure.
I wish I could have been in the control room at Capitol Studio A listening to the playback of 'Wichita Lineman' the first time it came into the atmosphere. It must have been a perfect moment in time.
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.
I've always been a sucker for a truck driving song.
I learned things by being in Lester Flatts' band, and I learned things by playing with Johnny Cash, and I learned from Pop Staples. I'm a sponge.
It's hard for a country performer to make a living in a Beatles society.
Merle Haggard once said, 'I'm really mad at Glen Campbell because he's the most talented human being in the world.' That kind of summed it up. Merle didn't miss!
One of the most quotable guys ever in country music was Grandpa Jones.
People shouldn't be punished for their wisdom.
Well, the first band was at nine, and I was on the road when I was 12 with the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers.
I think the way country music is set up, we all came from a family background.
My main electric guitar belonged to Clarence White, the great guitarist for the Byrds.
I swear, there is Capitol Studios and then there's every other studio on the planet Earth. It is the ultimate, paramount of sound in the United States of America. It is a magical place.
One of the people I heard early on in his career was Eric Church. I liked him and his music.
When we lost Glen Campbell, we lost an American original. We also lost a really good man.
I've always loved gospel music. Being raised in Mississippi, it was kind of part of the atmosphere down there.
Well, being from Mississippi, the church house is kind of the common denominator. It was for me growing up. Like so many public performers, that was the first place I was ever invited to sing.
Coming from bluegrass background, I totally understand family harmonies.
I never claimed to be a great photographer.
I figure I'm a mandolin player first and foremost, and everything else I've accomplished is just a scam.
It is great to know that the lives and careers of country music's artists are being documented through the Hall of Fame's expert archival and curatorial resources.
Country music has taken so many forms, and I've always contended that it does not matter if the casual listener falls in love with country music through Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show or whomever - just get in and start digging!
When country music is doing its job, it reports on the good, bad and indifferent of our human condition.
After people work hard and cope with the pressures of life throughout the week, going out to a show or tuning in to watch some characters in cowboy clothes, singing and playing songs about real life is something I relate to.
There's something cool about playing 'Tempted' and then picking up the mandolin and playing 'Dark as a Dungeon' and standing on the classics. It's nice to just let soul rule.
When I pick up Hank Williams' guitar or that first suit that Johnny Cash wore on stage, it empowers me.
