Garrison Keillor Quotes

I'm an old-school, embarrassing Joni Mitchell fan. Her music made a hook in my soul and hasn't let go for all these years. I even sing her songs as lullabies to my kids.

My mum's family would all get together, with guitars, harmonica, mandolins and upright bass and play old blues and folk songs. That was normal to me.

I know there's some kind of history to mountain music-like it came from Ireland or England or Scotland and we kept up the tradition.

I remember hanging out at Starbucks. There were these older guys who would sit around and play Crosby, Stills & Nash songs. I was just so in love with music. I would just go hang out with them, and I would try to sing and harmonize with them. I didn't even know the songs.

Since the beginning, the people of the college and I have agreed that the music of MerleFest is 'traditional plus.'

There are a whole lot of Carter Family songs.

There's nothing purer than Janette Carter with an autoharp.

I like for it to be mountain music or old-time country music or traditional bluegrass. Either one will fit me. It's traditional, basically.

I'm pretty sure in my older years, I'll be doing old-time flavored folk-mountain music.

I was like, 'Man, bluegrass - that's like Roy Clark playing banjo on 'Hee Haw.' I'm a huge 'Hee Haw' fan. But I didn't know about bluegrass. It seemed like old people's music.

I never met Johnny Cash personally, but I feel like I did because I listened to so much of his music, and even though he's gone, it's still there: you can go pull a vinyl record out and hear his personal thoughts and his voice and feel connected to him.

One of the most quotable guys ever in country music was Grandpa Jones.

I'm playing my father's music and I'm a fan of Led Zeppelin. The response has been beyond what I ever imagined it would be. Unreal. Everyone seems to understand the story I'm telling.

I personally am into the minstrel technique - if I hear someone playing a lute or playing a crumhorn, it just moves me. I don't know why.

It's always so rewarding, gratifying to me, as an artist and a writer, to see how this music gets more important for a lot of people as time goes by. And it's not just nostalgia. It's a feeling of it's really relevant to their lives, even though it's 20 or 25 years old or more.

I always play songs that are very based in folk music.

The Delmore Brothers is hit music - very, very popular - and it still retains that rural flavor and simplicity. I always think of it as family music, really, because families sang it.

I kind of have found my identity through the music, through the roots music of North Carolina, and kind of realized that that's my identity as a North Carolinian.

I challenged myself to carry on the style of guitar that my grandmother did: the Carter scratch.

I really love that song. I love when people cover songs that are familiar but have been kind of forgotten about. So when you play it, it takes people back to a certain place. That's what I wanted for 'Torn.'

I was about 14, and I got hooked on the music of the Stanley Brothers.

Mostly I listen to old-time music, some bluegrass, some Americana stuff, too many to name. But of the younger acts, there are The Freight Hoppers, who were big in the '90s, and The Foghorn Stringband from Oregon, and there's a lot of young string bands coming up now, basically punkers who play acoustic instruments forming new bands.

I want to share music that we grew up with for this generation, the music my parents shared with me.

I was always into bluegrass as a kid. Basically, I like music that has a basic simple structure and that has a lot of emotion and feel. Bluegrass and other old time music fits the bill, as well as what became punk - they both kind of have a similar framework.

I sing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.' It's a country song. It's one of my favorites to sing.