David Allan Coe Quotes

God bless Merle Haggard. He did all the things that Johnny Cash was supposed to have done.

Johnny Cash has always been larger than life.

To me, country music's about life. It's about Monday through Friday. It's the blue-collar, 40-hour week, songs about life. It used to have more of a sound, but I think the heart of that's still the same. It's still American music.

And I think it's safe to say that the single very impressive figure to me was Merle Haggard.

The records in the house I really remember were, well, Glen Campbell's 'Wichita Lineman' and 'Galveston.' Even as a kid, I knew these songs were glorious. My dad also had records by Merle Haggard, Charley Pride, Waylon Jennings, and then there was also the Eagles and Don Henley. Anything Texas, which includes Don Henley, was big.

I like Loretta Lynn.

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

I love Marty Robbins, I love Glen Campbell, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline.

Any nobody from the folk blues world could avoid being influenced by Woody Guthrie, who is actually of Scottish-Irish ancestry.

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.

I'm a big-time Johnny Cash fan.

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

What I always liked about country music was the stories, the ability to talk about very real things like divorce and drinking and death and jail.

June Carter Cash is probably my all-time favorite member of the Carter Family.

I like that old style of country music - it seems to me that a lot of the modern country music is rehashed rock n' roll.

I was a huge Garth Brooks fan.

I think that, in my research anyway, country music seems to be grounded in people staying true to their roots, being homegrown and being honest storytellers.

I like that outlaw crossover rock 'n' roll-country sound.

I make no apology about being a hillbilly.

I was lucky that my parents listened to really good music. My dad loved Kris Kristofferson.

I think people relate to Skynyrd; it's a working class band. They're just songs with messages. To this day, there's never been a song written that didn't have a message.

My dad is a big Outlaw country guy - Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Waylon, Willie. He loves Elvis and turned me onto Elvis. He was always playing me stuff. He and I would sing and entertain the family. We'd have a little skit on Thanksgiving or whatever.

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.

Growing up, I listened to a lot of American singer/songwriters, so a lot of Tom Waits, Paul Simon - also Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. And bands like Vampire Weekend.

I'm influenced by Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelly, Roland Kirk, John Coltrane, B.B. King, and then by bluegrass. But when I was 16, bluegrass wasn't cool. We was rock n' rollers then: Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis.