Elvis Costello Quotes

My music comes from country music. Merle Haggard is God, and I do believe that. I'm not too tuned in to country music. I don't know who Brooks and Dunn are. I like Shania Twain, though!

I grew up listening to my mother's collection of Hank Williams, George Jones and Marty Robbins records.

I listened to a lot of what my grandparents listened to: George Jones, Johnny Cash - a lot of old country singers. Patsy Cline.

I'm a lover of old traditional country - George Jones, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Marty Roberts.

Some of my biggest commercial musical influences would be people like Merle Haggard, George Jones, of course, Johnny Cash. People that wrote and sang their own stuff, I really admired.

In New York, I was excited about the music in New York because the only music that I was more or less involved with in the South was either country and western or hillbilly music as we used to call it when I was a kid and, ah, gospel. There was no, there was no in between. And when I got to New York all the other musics that's in the world just came into my head whether it was the classics, jazz, I never knew what jazz was about all, had heard anything about jazz.

I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.

There are a lot of country artists now that are heavily influenced by hip-hop. That's not me. I was very heavily influenced by rock & roll.

Elvis Presley's Sun stuff - there's an album out in England with just about all those sides on it - you know, the sound of that upright bass slapping away: that's what I like to listen to. That and Richard Pryor, that is.

In the late '70s, I was falling into the middle lane. I was way too country to be rock, and way too rock to be a country act.

Elvis was a way bigger influence than Waylon Jennings, but you don't wanna tell people, 'I never really listened to Waylon.'

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.

Look at Montgomery Gentry. If those boys came out in the '70s, they'd be Southern rock.

A lot of your rock people, even early, like Elvis, have always come from the South.

Country sure has changed in the last 10 years. It was one thing, then it was another. Country has slowly marched toward a rock beat and rock preservation. Country artists of today. Man! That's how I used to sound in the '80s.

Sam Phillips responded most to a song of mine called, "Hey Porter," which was on the first record.

When I was asked if I wanted to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, I yelled, 'Are you kidding me?' I've been waiting for that my whole life. To be invited where so many of the greatest country artists have performed is an honor, and I still can't believe it has been bestowed on me. Just to stand in the circle where so many greats have stood-Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, I just couldn't believe it.

By the time you get into other kinds of music - R&B, country, or whatever - it becomes something that's romantic. It becomes something unattainable. Never-ending undying love. And in hip hop, we're still taking direct inspiration.

People ask me who is my favorite country artist. I say, you mean besides George Jones.

I don't physically put Appetite For Destruction in and listen to it, but I hear it on the radio or at sporting events or wherever else it pops up, and it's great. I dig everything about it. When I hear Appetite, it sounds like exactly what it was. It sounds like a record made by an angry bunch of kids.

When I was a kid, the people of my generation didn't want to be writers, they wanted to be rock stars. Rock and roll was not just entertainment, it was the center of people's lives. When I was young, it was exciting and interesting.

Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan I heard when I was 13. It was one of those things where it was like, "Hey, the world is much bigger than you imagined as a little kid."

Socially, hip-hop has done more for racial camaraderie in this country than any one thing. 'Cause guys like me, my kids - everyone under 45 either grew up loving hip-hop or hating hip-hop, but everyone under 45 grew up very aware of hip-hop. So when you're a white kid and you're listening to this music and you're being exposed to it every day on MTV, black people become less frightening. This is just a reality. What hip-hop has done bringing people together is enormous.

George Jones was a big, huge name in our household. George Jones-he is considered country, but in every genre he is known. Everybody knows George Jones. But George has such a unique voice. And he made such timeless songs, like "Color of the Blues", just real hard-core country stuff.

A lot of kids bought guitars and started playing rock'n'roll because of us.