Jay DeMarcus Quotes

I've gotten to go to the Opry a couple of times and stand backstage and watch. But I made it a point not to take a tour or stand in the circle until music took me there. I told myself that was one place I'd never go unless music took me there.

That's what I love about Nashville and the music community - seeing kids around acoustic music and bluegrass picking parties is the best.

I get the same feeling walking into the Opry House as I do when I see one of my heroes.

I had kind of a mean piano teacher. I went to Catholic school, so it was like the typical thing you would imagine - a little kid with a white-haired teacher frowning at the fact that I didn't practice.

Growing up, I always considered the Grand Ole Opry to be hallowed ground.

I was 10 years old when I first heard Ginuwine. I remember being at a friend's house, and the music video came on. I was just like, 'What is that?' I was just kind of drawn from there.

You put a song on the record or on tape and you stop singing it. You just don't sit around and sing it anymore unless you're performing. That's kind of sad.

I always had a love of music, from the time I was a little kid, dressing up and singing along with Michael Jackson songs.

I've been an REM fan since I was a little girl. I would jump around to 'Stand' in the mirror.

The Grand Ole Opry is an artist, and I am proud to be one of its songs.

I grew up with the Grand Ole Opry, Dottie West, Conway Twitty, Buck Owens... not realizing it was influencing me as much as it was.

Was I in a nativity play? I think I was an angel; I was a very blonde child, so I tended to get typecast. I have a vague memory of wearing wings.

There's no shame in owning a New Kids on the Block t-shirt. They were my first concert when I was eight.

I remember always looking forward to listening to country music in the car with my mother, and it wasn't even something I enjoyed in the sense of music, but just being around music itself was enough.

It means so much being a part of country music and the Opry.

My earliest memories of country music are the Grand Ole Opry.

When I was very small, the electricity was turned off because we didn't pay the bill. I remember sitting by the oil lamp listening to my mother playing 'Careless Love' on the piano.

There are early videos of me at three years old with a tiny guitar trying to sing 'Friends in Low Places' by Garth Brooks.

When I got to sit in Big Bird's nest with Big Bird and sing the song, 'Sing. Sing a song. Sing out loud,' that was my crowning achievement.

I think the first concert I ever went to was maybe a Five Iron Frenzy concert or something when I was in high school.

My first albums as a little kid were Elton John's 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,' Simon and Garfunkel's 'Greatest Hits' - and 'Workingman's Dead.' How many other people still listen to the music they liked at age 12?

I used to love watching 'Hee Haw' on TV when I was a kid. My brothers and sisters weren't happy about it, but I just loved the music.

'Roxbury Drive' was the street I grew up on as a little kid, and it was the street that I first listened to records on, and where I actually really first fell in love with music.

Country music as a genre, as an art form, is just as valid out there in the pantheon of the arts as classical, jazz, ballet, whatever.

I don't remember ever not wanting to be a country singer. Even as a little kid, that was my dream.