The first picture of me that I know of was me in the crib wearing a pair of cowboy boots.
— Marty Stuart
I learned things by being in Lester Flatts' band, and I learned things by playing with Johnny Cash, and I learned from Pop Staples. I'm a sponge.
Being sober and clear-eyed changes everything.
I loved the Rolling Stones. I heard a little bit of country music creeping around the edges of some of their songs. Being a Mississippi kid, I could feel they had done their homework, even when I was a little boy. I could feel the Delta blues influence in a lot of their work.
Nobody in my school knew who Bill Monroe was, or Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and barely Johnny Cash. Nobody spoke that language. I proceeded to get myself kicked out.
I hate labels.
The history of country music is as important as any other art form.
When I was 12 years old I discovered Bill Monroe and my dad got me a mandolin.
From the first time I played with Lester Flatt, I sensed an extreme amount of history around me.
When times are good, we have tunes to dance to; when times are tough, we're supposed to talk about it. That's country music.
Pop Staples was one of my true mentors.
Well, I've always said that country music has always shared a very unique relationship with gospel music - the hooting and hollering, you know, always in abundance.
Country music has taken so many forms, and I've always contended that it does not matter if the casual listener falls in love with country music through Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Old Crow Medicine Show or whomever - just get in and start digging!
People shouldn't be punished for their wisdom.
I went out on the road when I was 12 years old, playing with the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers. That was the summer of 1972. We played Pentecostal churches, camp meetings, George Wallace campaign rallies and bluegrass festivals. As a kid, I had grown up watching quartets that were very entertaining.
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.
There's every other guitar player and then there's Chet. He transcended musical boundaries for more than fifty years. God only lays Chet Atkins on you once in a lifetime.
As a photographer, God's light in Southern California is something unlike I've ever seen on planet Earth. There's a beauty about it, especially in the afternoon that is so pretty.
After something has run its course, you either become a parody and keep doing it, or tear it down and know the truth about it, warts and all.
I don't know how it got around that I play a lot of instruments. I really don't. I play the guitar and the mandolin.
Growing up in the Sixties, whether it was the Batmobile or the costumes Porter Wagoner wore or the music that came from there, California was the home of what a friend of mine calls 'custom culture.' It seemed like the promised land.
I make no apology about being a hillbilly.
I believe in the future of country music, but a future without roots is like a kite with no string.
Hillbilly Rock' was the song that opened the door and gave me a reason to get a bus and a band and cowboy clothes to go out there and figure it out in front of everybody. And the hits started coming.
Rock 'n' roll entertained my head but there was something about country music that touched my heart.
I've always been a collector at heart.
When country music is doing its job, it reports on the good, bad and indifferent of our human condition.
Coming from bluegrass background, I totally understand family harmonies.
Well, being from Mississippi, the church house is kind of the common denominator. It was for me growing up. Like so many public performers, that was the first place I was ever invited to sing.
There was a junk store in Nashville on 8th Avenue, where I bought Patsy Cline's train case for $75.
Addiction is a crazy disease. It's a progressive disease when it's not dealt with; it don't care who it takes, and it takes it all. You wind up losing your house, your home, your reputation.
I saw footage of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley just hanging out together in Memphis when they were young guys getting started at Sun, listening to records together. That was beautiful to me.
One of the most quotable guys ever in country music was Grandpa Jones.
When we lost Glen Campbell, we lost an American original. We also lost a really good man.
If I go into the Mississippi Delta at pitch black midnight and put on a Robert Johnson record, it's hard to sit in the car because it's pretty powerful.
The four things a hillbilly singer needs are a Cadillac, a Nudie suit, the right hairdo, and a pair of pointy-toed boots.
We need a new Hank Williams, a new Jimmy Webb. We need new writers, a new Tom Petty. We need people that write what they feel and what they see - things that are relevant.
Every time I hear a Garth Brooks record I tend to want to hear James Taylor.
I figure I'm a mandolin player first and foremost, and everything else I've accomplished is just a scam.
The Ryman and the Grand Ole Opry, if you're a Southern boy, is just a way of life.
There wasn't really a lot of difference from a Mississippi perspective between what Elvis did on 'Mystery Train' or 'Milkcow Blues' or what Bill Monroe was playing or what Flatt and Scruggs was playing; it was rock 'n' roll to me.
One thing that I love about country music, probably more so than any other culture - maybe the blues rivals it - there are so many American folk heroes. There's the Coal Miner's Daughter, the Man in Black, the Red-Headed Stranger, and on and on.
After people work hard and cope with the pressures of life throughout the week, going out to a show or tuning in to watch some characters in cowboy clothes, singing and playing songs about real life is something I relate to.
I'm always on the prowl for the kinds of recordings that can inspire and potentially make a difference.
Well, my heart finally found a home when I married Connie Smith, and I was tired of feeling bad. And it was time to grow up and get on with life.
I've always been a sucker for a truck driving song.
One of the people I heard early on in his career was Eric Church. I liked him and his music.
The black church in the South is the home of rock & roll.
I've been promoting the idea of a Jimmie Rodgers documentary for years.
I don't have many regrets in my life. But I have one. I would have stayed sober all along.
