Country California

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There are a couple of blonde gals now signed at Universal South Records. One is Bailey Brown and the other is Ashley Ray. I don’t know these girls. I’ve never even seen their picture. ●
- – That much is obvious from the fact that Ashley Ray is a brunette, Hazel. (Brody beat me to this one.)

Yadda yadda yadda ●
- – Hundreds of comments on a CMT article about Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson. Yawn.

I get really restless when I haven’t worked for a day and a half. I have a recurring dream that people are lined up next to my bed, waiting for autographs and taking pictures of me! ●
- – Taylor Swift is a workaholic (says a man who gets restless when he works for more than a day and a half).

And his wife came up to my wife and said, ‘I’m a little tired of this bromance that my husband is having with your husband.’ ●
- – Darius Rucker and Dierks Bentley are having a bromance. Pass it on.

Harlan Howard used to say, ‘Write them with three chords and the truth,’ but we beat him on this one — we only used two chords, and it might not be the truth! ●
- – Two chords and a lie just doesn’t have the same ring to it as three chords and the truth, does it? Songwriter Dennis Morgan on “River of Love.”

Republican or Democrat, on Nov. 4 you had to be moved. People stood there in disbelief at the turn our country had taken. There was a sense of pride, no matter who you were. I remember having discussions on my bus, in my household: Could he really win this? A lot of people were saying, ‘I don’t know if it’s time, if the country’s ready.’ And then all of a sudden, I guess we’re ready. Welcome to the future. ●
- – Brad Paisley on the election of Barack Obama.

The good news is it is not just about celebrating ghosts and legends. I promise you, go to Shipshewana and take a look around the parking lot. I guarantee you will find kids that are playing the banjo and the mandolin, singing traditional songs. There are a lot of young people that are playing the real deal. That is what interests me. ●
- – Marty Stuart on the future of traditional country music.

They start their career with a record… and then they go out on the road. I started my career in a nightclub. I worked seven nights a week before I got a record. Today, they’re handling it more like rock and roll. They’ve got young girls and young good-looking guys. They’re like the army — they find somebody to enlist, they get them a record, get them a song and they don’t know what to do about it. ●
- – Merle Haggard on kids these days and the industry that’s courting them.

I mean, there is no Mary Chapin Carpenter, no Emmylou Harris on country radio right now filling that void. I would like to do that. But I would also still hope to play on a Steve Earle tour and then maybe a Keith Urban tour. At the end of the day, I’m singing these simple songs that I feel can be played to any audience. ●
- – All the good things you’ve been hearing about the new Holly Williams album? Pretty much true.

I think I waited for the right time in country music to come along. People like Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts paved the way for what I’m doing. ●
- – Way to not make me want to investigate you any further, Eric Durrance.

It might be the first ever female southern rock record. ●
- – Gretchen Wilson on her own “I Got Your Country Right Here.”

He didn’t try to do ’80s rock on the country format. Everybody thinks that country music is really exclusive and that we get mad when they cross over, but we really don’t. We just want them to give us a country song. ●
- – KRTY (San Jose) program director Julie Stevens on the success of Darius Rucker.

Q: You’re a country music fan. There’s a YouTube clip of you singing …
A: Oh dear. (Laughs.) I’ll never live that down. I went on TV and sang Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” which I do in the shower. It was the first time I did it in front of the public with my clothes on and dry. ●
- – I’m having a little trouble parsing that last statement from George Takei (Sulu). Had he done the song in front of the public – but wet and naked – prior to his appearance on Secret Talents of the Stars?

You find two different kinds of people: People who will lay down on the railroad track for me, and people who want to tie me down to the railroad track. Hopefully, more people are on my side, and there are. But some don’t like it when a guy as loud and raging as I am comes blasting through town. ●
- – John Rich on being John Rich. There’s something really arrogant about thinking you’re a big enough deal that everybody either loves you or hates you. Personally, I just think you’re a tool, John. No hate here.