Keith Whitley Quotes

I don't listen to the radio too much, but usually I listen to Stanley Brothers and Ralph Stanley more than I do anybody!

It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians.

I was never into the Bluegrass, Bill Monroe and stuff like that.

Bluegrass has a very, very strict musical form. Once you start to dilute it, it disappears.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.

Bluegrass is really a big part of my background.

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.

Early Bluegrass is my favorite kind of music, not to many people know that.

I have noticed that these pop bands will play our hillbilly songs when they cain't eat any other way!

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.

We came out of bluegrass, so we could play.

I really haven't strayed too far, musically, from my roots.

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.

When we moved back to the US, folk music was all the rage. So I traded in my banjo for a guitar.

I always thought I was singing American folk music.

I was reared on folk music.

I am fascinated by the places that music comes from, like fife-and-drum blues from southern Mississippi or Cajun music out of Lafayette, Louisiana, shape-note singing, old harp singing from the mountains - I love that stuff. It's like the beginning of rock and roll: something comes down from the hills, and something comes up from the delta.

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.

When I was a kid, I remember trying to emulate Stevie Wonder's sound, and Donny Hathaway's sound. It's just part of who I am - I'm just a soulful kind of dude.

I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues.

Bluegrass is in my blood and in my ears.

I listen to many forms of music. And I come from a very particular style and tradition of music, which has certain elements that are absolutely unique and, therefore, important to the world.

My daddy had been a fiddler, and I heard a lot of fiddle music as a child. I had a ukulele and had played along with him.

What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today.

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