Roots Music Quotes

My heroes were gospel blues players like Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, not whoever was number one.

I don't really think of myself as a folk singer.

Mostly folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something old and dead. It's all a bit boring, like ballet: a minority thing kept going by a minority group.

I grew up listening to Bob Marley, Jill Scott, Floetry, Nas, Jay-Z, Beyonce.

The music that I first fell in love with was American music, really. Nothing against British acts - I love them and will forever - but on the whole, it was the art of American storytelling in the kind of folk and blues lyrics that, if you scratch a little bit, there's a heartbreaking story there.

My favorite bands are Hank Williams Jr. and Led Zeppelin. When it's rock, it's '70s rock, and when it's country, it's '70s country. For me, it's the grit and dirt of music that I love so much.

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

First I was a European-style player, then I was a downtown 'noise guy,' and now some people call me an Americana guy.

I don't really know what 'folk music' means anymore.

I write alternative, folkie pop. It's very acoustic.

Two of my favorite bands, Blackberry Smoke and Black Stone Cherry, I just think both of those bands are a good new progressive kind of Southern Rock that's a little different than us but still has a rootsy thing going on.

I call myself a singer-songwriter influenced by the gospel and jazz tradition. Naturally, because of my lifestyle and love for nature, there's a lot of folk and Americana there because that's just my life.

Folk music - and what people are now perceiving as being folk music - is music that's quite close to the ground. The songs sound quite old, even if they're new. They sound like they've been sung by different people for years.

It's my luck to be at the frontier of what looks to be a resurrection of roots music on the international scene. That's really what reggae music is about: that voice against oppression and struggle.

To me, all music that is made under the umbrella of the United States of America is Americana music.

Country music is what is sincere; that's the main thing.

Folk music is where I come from originally. The very first thing that introduced me to playing guitars at all was skiffle - my cousin had been in London the summer that skiffle was big.

Pieta Brown is a great singer/songwriter who possesses major star power magnetism.

Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.

I love Don Williams records. And old Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe.

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.

Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk-rock.

James Burton was playing some pure roots stuff. Gram Parsons took an interest in that record [in '68-'69] and he admired it. I never had the concept that I'm going to go somewhere and I'm going to have this career. I just really never thought about all that.

I love polished pop music, but stuff like Neil Young's Crazy Horse vibe or Waylon Jennings, that stuff is raw and real.

The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues.