35 Quotes by Keith Whitley

I learned to do things the way the old-timers did.

For me, the past isn't deep and dark; I had a lot of fun I couldn't have had any other way.

I don't remember ever not singing. It's just as natural as breathing for me.

I had a rock and roll band as a kid. What I wanted to be in was a country band, but in Sandy Hook, Ky., you're hard-pressed to find a steel guitar player or a drummer.

I feel like I have to create the Keith Whitley sound. That doesn't mean I can't borrow from the people I grew up listening to, but it doesn't serve any purpose to sing the same kind of songs they sang. When you do that, it's going to come out sounding like an imitation, whether it's meant to or not.

Lyrics mean a lot to me, and I won't record a song unless I can feel it. That's something I learned from Carter Stanley. Even when he wasn't perfect technically, he got inside a song and sold it emotionally.

Shortly after I started in bluegrass, Ricky Skaggs and I got together and the bluegrass career just snowballed. Being 15 or 16 and making good money playing music was pretty attractive.

I learned to love bluegrass, but my first love stayed hard country.

You may not hear much bluegrass on the surface of my music, but I feel the emotion I put in a song comes from bluegrass. Bluegrass taught me to interpret a song, not just sing it.