Johnny Mercer Quotes

I thought I'd gone to heaven, because I grew up watching Roy and Gene Autry.

Cowboys had guitars. And they sang country 'cause they lived in the country.

Even by the time I was four or five, I had Gene Autry records.

I listen to a lot of really old western and country music. There's a lot of cool stuff in there... all the heartbreak of the country darkness.

I'm the oldest son of a crazy man, I'm in a cowboy band.

Every country in the world loved the folklore of the West--the music, the dress, the excitement, everything that was associated with the opening of a new territory. It took everybody out of their own little world. The cowboy lasted a hundred years, created more songs and prose and poetry than any other folk figure. The closest thing was the Japanese samurai. Now, I wonder who'll continue it.

I always liked the idea of the guitar - because cowboys played the guitar.

I grew up in Arizona and have a lot of buddies that are cowpokes.

I remember driving the tractor on our farm, and Tim McGraw would be on the radio. I'd find myself walking out of class, singing his songs. And then Tim ended up playing my father in 'Friday Night Lights.' It was surreal.

Spending two years on my uncle's ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.

Of all the songs I've recorded, 'Amarillo By Morning' always sticks out in my mind.

I had been raised on country and western in Missouri. But gospel was great.

This was the 1940s; there was no television. It was a different age - it was not swamped by media; it was swamped by reality, and storytelling was a very big art where I came from.

Gene Autry was the most. It may sound like a joke - Go and have a look in my bedroom, It's covered with Gene Autry posters. He was my first musical influence.

When I was growing up in the '60s I would have thought that westerns would last forever.

When I was nine, I was singing western swing: Roy Rogers and Patsy Cline. It got me noticed because no one my age was doing it, but it made me feel inferior because none of my friends could relate to it.

My father was what you would call a cowboy, a vaquero; he worked out in the ranches with cattle. And my mother came from farmers down in the valley.

I'm a country boy.

I can remember sittin' in a cafe when I first started in rodeo, and waitin' until somebody got done so I could finish what they left.

Listening to country music as a kid allowed my imagination to run wild.

I got turned onto the 'Pat Garrett' soundtrack when I worked retail back in the day.

I listened to a battery radio, old country and pop stuff. Because I was singing all the time, my dad bought me a $7.50 guitar.

I was raised on a ranch in Wyoming, and I've been riding horses most of my life.

I'm always going to be a Cowboy.

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