Steve Young Quotes - Page 2

51 Martin [guitar] sounded pretty good as new guitar. Martin has several levels of guitars now, and this one is pretty good.

I've refined it since [ was living in Beaumont, Texas], but I was just obsessed with the guitar. I remember one day sitting in class and it just came to me how the neck worked. I was enlightened to the scales, and the runs. I just saw it and thought; now I understand it!

When was about 16 or 17, I was living in Beaumont, Texas and Carlos Montoya came to Lamar College. I went to see him and I didn't know what flamenco was. But when I saw him play, I was blown away that one man on one instrument could make all that sound. I'd learned a lot, but that made a big impact. I had intuition for it. In about three years I learned most of what I know now.

If I was an actor, it would be like a part that was me. It has to be real to me. I have to make it mine. I really enjoy taking a song I feel that way about, and sometimes it can take a long time to come up with just the right touch. I think that's really my greatest talent, interpreting.

My favorite record I've ever done is Rock Salt and Nails. It was recorded in '68-'69 and released in '69. There's something about that record I really like.

I didn't have the self-promotion instinct, and I just didn't care about it. I sort of had a "beat" attitude.

I like the idea of having an old Gibson [guitar], but I don't have one. The Gibson has a different quality, but it's almost like you need both.

I was such a heavy drinker I was going to die at age 37. Not to mention the drugs. I'm glad to be sober, I haven't missed a thing. A lot of people never get the chance to come back.

I always had a hard time with Nashville. I reluctantly live there. I've mellowed, and it's improved some, in the fact it has more immigrants. There's some real Mexicans there, some folks from India, some of this and that. I'm not satisfied at all with living there. It's a dilemma for me.

I notice guys playing the piano playing a part up here and a part down there, and I wandered why couldn't I do that on the guitar?

Gibson ES 125 was a real instrument, this was in 1956. I started learning; I had a vision of a sound.

I have somewhat [Taylor's or Gallagher's guitars], but I like the power of the Martins.

I'm playing a D-28 Martin that I've had about 20 years or so. I've got a '51 Martin and I thought I shouldn't be taking this on the road. So I went down to Gruhn Guitars in Nashville and kind of traded around and ended up with this one. This guitar sounded pretty good as new guitar.

If I wasn't so lazy, or if I had a roadie, I'd have a line of guitars on stage. I'd have a lap steel and a nylon string up there, but who wants to keep up with all that?

I did admire the comments and the music of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. And that didn't fly too well in the Deep South. It was not quite redneck enough.

My playing style is very eccentric and mostly self taught.

I had a guy who went out of way to help me get started and somehow saw something in me. I couldn't get my hands on a real guitar till I was fourteen. I always wanted one from the time I was a tiny kid. Music was bigger than life to me.

I grew up wanting a guitar, my family was very poor. When I was fourteen my mother bought me a Gibson ES 125 thin body. That was a bunch of money in those days - $125.00.

I really wanted a guitar. As A little boy I used to tell people I was going to be a musician. They would humor me, and I'd make up thirty minute songs and drive them nuts.

I heard black people sing and the emotion was overwhelming to me. The power of that with all the built in sorrow and joy was just overwhelming to me as a little kid. It was the real deal.

Josh Graves laid down the dobro on that song [The White Trash Song] and he was hot. We went on the road together and we'd get drunker'n hell every night! I haven't had a drink since November, 1979. And I like it.

I was known to spout off about [ politics and religion] sometimes, especially in my drinkin' days! It was pretty dangerous actually.

I was always drawn to the roots music, bluegrass, blues, early rock - Sun Records, Elvis [Presley]. And I still love that music to this day. Memphis never gets the credit. It's much more musically rich than Nashville ever will be. Nashville manufactured that hokey-hillbilly image way back.

I was born and grew up in the Deep South, and I must say it wasn't easy for me. I always marched to a drummer, I had different views about politics and religion and I had them relatively young.

I give NFL quarterbacks a lot of leeway for a couple of years.