Roger McGuinn Quotes

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.

Country music belongs to America.

Songs like the Buck Owens tune, for example, are very simple and straightforward, and recording it really gave me a chance to get into and get a sense of Buck's personality, a feel for that whole Bakersfield sound.

Emmylou Harris is just the biggest influence of mine musically, her and Dolly Parton.

I grew up listening to Dolly Parton and just loving her music.

Going back to the Byrds and 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo,' when country was kind of getting away from the fiddle and steel aspect, it took some rock & rollers to introduce a new generation to it, and it kinda put some things straight.

Country music has always been about as close to R&B as you can possibly get. We're storytellers.

Country music is the people's music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are.

I never get tired of exploring Americana or country music, and I always have a little bit of a crooner in me that never seems to go away.

Country music was the music I was brought up on. It's the music that's closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it's always been a big influence on my own songwriting.

Country music is me, it's what I've grown up with, and it's what I do.

I don't know anybody who doesn't hate being called alt.country. It just sounds like a website. I don't mind being called Americana, I don't mind being called country noir, or independent country is fine, but the words alt.country make me insane.

I got country music in me.

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It's when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

I was introduced to country music around a campfire on a farm.

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later.

To me, country music is like the blues, but it's something very hip and - I don't want to say commercial - but it's very worldly and good listening.

Country music originates with the colloquial, rural aspects of white America. It's really, truly, rural white America's blues.

I've always liked country music. It's a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America.

Patsy Cline is my favorite singer in the entire world - she is my idol. I adore her.

I used to be fast and loose with the term 'country' because I didn't know what else to call my music. I still don't.

Country music historically has been sort of middle-aged people's music.

When Merle and I started out we called our music 'traditional plus,' meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play.

I got to where I couldn't listen to country radio. Country music is supposed to have steel and fiddle. When I hear country music, it should be country.

Country music's always had the best musicians in any format of music, and I always gravitated toward that, stuff that was musically interesting.