I think it is very important in this business to be an individual.
I’m the most low-maintenance person on the road.
We have never seen a career like George Strait’s in this business, and I venture to say we never will again. He has handled things amazingly well.
In my office, I have framed album covers by Dottie West, Connie Smith, Tammy, Dolly, Loretta and Jessi Colter.
It’s hard either way, at home or on the bus, I think the hardest thing probably for me is going one second from being mom to right out on the stage and having to be that person too. It’s hard to switch gears.
There’s no great guitarist that doesn’t sit down and listen to Chet Atkins and Eddie Van Halen, and all these other great players.
The one who actually decided that I should keep my name was my manager, Erv Woolsey.
But I’m also a music lover, and I’ll always try a lot of different things.
I came to town thinking that everybody had the same idea of what country music was that I did.
You know, you want everything you do, obviously, to be a success critically and commercially. But what you find out as you go along is that everything won’t.
When you really are country, and you don’t just wear it like a piece of clothing or something, you really can’t get away from it. It just is who you are.
So it’s more the musician in me that makes me stretch out and try different things more than anything. But, like a lot of guitar players, I have one certain niche that’s my thing that I’m better at than the others.
The satisfaction that I get from doing what I do is not what I thought. I thought it would be that I’d feel like a star, I’d feel important. But I don’t.
Nominations come and go. It is not going to happen to you every year, and I am very well aware of that.
Maybe, I want her to do anything she wants, but I hope her interest in singing stays high.
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder. You get your fill to eat, but always keep that hunger. May you never take one single breath for granted. God forbid love ever leave you empty handed.
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean. Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens. Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance. And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.
Never settle for the path of least resistance.
But I just love that music scene so much, and I enjoy really being around those artists and watching them even more than I do performing, because they are a whole group of people that do it because they love music.
So you do shorter versions of the hits, or you take out a long guitar solo or things like that to make time for the hits and new music as well. But I don’t think any of us ever get to do as much new music as we would like to.
I’ve learned the lesson that when you’re in the middle of something that seems overwhelming, or you’re in a bad situation and it seems like it’s the end of the world or whatever, then you learn that it’s not.