Rodney Crowell Quotes

My mother and dad played the fiddle and the guitar.

I don't think I'm a country artist, really. I'm a country person, but I don't think I'm necessarily a country singer or musician.

I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek.

Music is a big thing in our family. I also have a feeling and an ear for it. It's something we share in common.

All my children ski now, they don't have a choice. They have to join mom and dad on the ski hill.

There are guitars everywhere around all of our houses. Pianos. Guitars. It's kind of just in our blood. It's in our nature.

My dad used to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and my mom liked Michael Bolton and Roy Orbison. She was pretty big into country music, too. So there was a wealth of music being played in the house, and I kind of took it all in.

From 11 to 17, I just toured my butt off with my dad and my sister. We hit the road and I was singing all kinds of different songs and different types of genres. But I knew from an early age what I wanted my sound to be, which was country on bass, and I wanted to be a country artist.

My mom and dad are great cooks. We ate meals at the dinner table, as a family.

In my living room, I was always playing guitar and writing songs and singing them. My dad and I would always sing together - only for friends and family, but always since I was a little girl.

My first experience with the arts must have been the sound of my mother singing to me when I was in the womb. The sound of my father singing to me when he held me. The sound of The Temptations records that they played.

Imagine if you grew up in a place where your lineage was there for a hundred years, and part of the culture was to play music 50 percent of the time. You'd probably have a lot of musicians in your family too.

My form of rebellion was starting to play guitar. I was 13. The first song I played was 'Lovesick Blues' by Hank Williams.

I've heard that the true love of country music is alive and well. That gives me so much hope and so much happiness.

My mother played guitar by ear, and all of us sang except my father, bless his heart.

In the middle of Mississippi, so many kinds of music came, but it was Nashville and country music that pulled my heart.

I got to Nashville on Labor Day weekend in 1972. And the Grand Ole Opry is still there, the Country Music Hall of Fame is still there. And the roots of country music are still there. It's where the authenticity and the empowering force lies.

We were both into motocross. My dad would wake me up at 6:30 on weekends, brew some coffee and make some sandwiches for us. Then we'd spend the day racing together. I know he had this reputation as being wild and irresponsible, but I never saw any of that.

Growing up, the Opry was my Hollywood.

Dad had a way of defining himself. He couldn't put his finger on whether it was rock 'n' roll or country.

I'm from Kenner, Louisiana, where music is played for every occasion in life. There's music for being born, there's music for dying... It's just natural. Families get really good because they play a lot together.

I first picked up a guitar at seven after watching Dad play at backyard barbecues.

I do think I am a country boy at heart. I love the buzz of towns and going out with friends and sitting with them drinking and whatever - it's fun - but, at the same time, I like space and freedom.

A man must be of a very quiet and happy nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well contented with his own insignificant person.

I do feel a little embarrassed and ashamed that I was sort of saying, "Oh, yes, I used to do country music, but I didn't inhale." Which is not true at all. I inhaled the hell out of country music.