Today the most outlaw thing you can possibly do in Nashville, Tennessee, is play country music.
If you can't play guitar and sing in Nashville, you might as well just be a construction worker.
There is this place in Nashville called Steak and Shake, which is pretty much the best food, ever. That is our secret, sexy place to go. When I look over at her when she's biting into a steak sandwich and there is some steak sauce dripping down her chin, there is nothing sexier.
When I was growing up, Nashville was the place to go if you had songs to sell and thought you had talent and wanted to tour and be on Grand Ole Opry [radio show]. It was the big deal back in those days to play the Grand Ole Opry. And you could travel around the world saying, "Hi, I'm Willie from the Grand Ole Opry".
I don't leave my neighborhood. I don't go anywhere. There are four blocks I live in and there are two coffee shops, one at each end of the block... so I don't do much driving... Some people would say they never see me because I don't go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.
Holland is to dance music what Nashville is to country.
When I first got to Nashville, somebody said that [Kris Kristofferson and I] were the only two people who could describe Dolly Parton without using their hands.
My absolute favorite meal in Nashville is sweet-potato pancakes at Pancake Pantry.
In the tradition of the classic songwriter rooms like The Bluebird in Nashville, Strange Brew is a gift to the music community in Austin, for artists and audiences alike
Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities'- New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.
Nashville will never be the same.
I used to be sick of the backroads of Minnesota. I had to drive 30 miles to get home every day, take the schoolbus for two hours. But to drive through America and see the backroads, from Nashville to Memphis, Lovick to New Mexico, was incredible. It was probably the greatest trip of my life.
I wanted to be great. And I loved Nashville, so that made it easy. I loved the music business. It made it easy for me to stay and make a life here.
In college, I thought I wanted to be solely an artist, and then when I got here, to college, I was like, "Okay, well I want to be a songwriter," 'cause it was like close to Nashville.
Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter.
I grew up listening to everything, and when I got signed to a record deal out of Nashville, that was my introduction to what was happening in country music.
Country music was a part of my life. Now it isn't. We had a good relationship, really, but we wanted each other at arm's length. The people in Nashville didn't want to be responsible for my looks or my actions. But they sure did like the listeners I brought.
I think I had the same notion most people have, which is it’s simply a town that percolates around country music. Though country-music history is deep and richly steeped throughout the city, this is a place that’s been expanding musically and culturally…People coming from Europe and Canada-there are all kinds of different cultures and different music being represented here. It continues to blossom.
All I knew when I moved to Nashville was that I wanted to make music in whatever shape and form I could.
My biggest extravagances are also investments. I have several houses in California, a house in Nashville, an office complex, and I bought the old home place in Tennessee. They are different places for me to write, but I can turn right around and sell them.
That's what I love about Nashville and the music community - seeing kids around acoustic music and bluegrass picking parties is the best.
Everybody now thinks that Nashville is the coolest city in America.
L.A.'s cool; I had a run with it to where it just pretty much wore me out. I love the weather and I have great friends there, great family, but I really cannot take a lot of the culture. Like Nashville, where everybody's a songwriter, everybody out there is an actor.
Great music can come from anywhere around the globe. And there has always been a music business. It just wasn't recorded, nor was it centered in New York, London, Los Angeles or Nashville but rather St Petersburg, Vienna, Berlin, Milan and Paris.
You know, when you're an actor, you want to go to Hollywood. When you're a musician, you want to go to Nashville.
