Simon Cowell Quotes

Lets be clear, Dolly Parton is a rapper. Somewhere before all the country, I don't know what happens up there in the mountains when you're growing up, but she has been spitting rhymes for a very long time - 50 years I'd say.

Off-camera, I sound like Perry Como.

No matter what, I can't sound like John Lennon. But I can do Tom Jones.

I can go to a country song, go right into it and make it sound authentic. And I think that's because of my ear as an impressionist.

I would never put any growl on my voice in concert - it's not the kind of music I sing.

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

You've got Chris Stapleton doing what he's doing, and Sam Hunt, Florida Georgia Line... Everyone has their own lane, and we felt like the falsetto was my lane.

I don't have a rock voice. I have to force it. I am like an opera singer.

I remember people would talk about Country Music like it was this sexist, lame thing. Well, no, because Dolly Parton is writing songs and playing her guitar and producing. She's doing it all and she's got hits on the radio.

When I first got to Nashville, somebody said that [Kris Kristofferson and I] were the only two people who could describe Dolly Parton without using their hands.

I am singing a genre of music that people are very protective of. I am being compared to the greatest vocalist of all time.

I think I prefer singing in falsetto. I like the way it sounds. It doesn't sound like my natural voice. It sounds like a character.

Presley sounded like Jayne Mansfield looked - blowsy and loud and low.

I think Patsy Cline made country music classy. She just opens her mouth, and it's just heavenly.

There are some singers that have great technique and then there are those that have a certain quality or style in their voice. Some have both, like Freddie Mercury, but to me, I prefer style over technique.

I love country, folk, and strong female voices, like Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, PJ Harvey, and Kate Bush.

This is my first week as an American citizen. It's amazing. Now I can vote in the general election - and for American Idol.

I love researching, whether it's old Western documentaries or old Western country singers or John Ford Westerns, which are heavily influenced by family values, which so many of these country songs are related to. I'm having a good time doing that, and writing some treatments and hoping to bring a new style of music video to the country genre, that is starting to become very poppy.

There's the old joke, "What's the difference between country and redneck? Well, that's three hundred dollars."

A country without idols is nothing.

I think that was going on with bands like The Strokes was that the idea of the band, a real band, was making a comeback. My brother in law is an example- before he was listening to some country music, even some of that awful nu-metal stuff , but there weren't many options really.

When I think about country music, I think about America.

My songs speak for themselves. The musicians who play on them and the way they sound and where they were recorded and the way they were recorded is the old Nashville way ... they sound as country or more country than a lot of things that are on country radio.

I believe if you ask any singer who was the greatest country music singer of all time, they would say 'George Jones'. He was without question and by far the BEST! I first met and worked with him when I was 13 years old; I am so very grateful that he was my friend.

From watching Lester (Flatt), I learned that it's important to be loyal to the people who made you and bought your music. He called me up to the front of the (tour) bus on the very first trip I went on with him. Lester pointed out two elderly people who were walking towards the but. He said, 'Those two people have been coming to see me since the mid 40's. That's what a country fan is all about.'