Keith Whitley Quotes

Keith Whitley

Profession : Singer

Birth : July 1, 1954

My manager, my band members, we're all good friends. You need that because a lot of times an artist will be so sheltered he will lose touch with what the fans want.

Keith Whitley

Everyone falls in love, everyone gets their heart broken.

Keith Whitley

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

Keith Whitley

I did so many crazy things while drinking.

Keith Whitley

I got into bluegrass music when I was 14, as a way to get into a band. My brother and I had a band and our own radio show, and that's what was popular.

Keith Whitley

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.

Keith Whitley

Even when I was 3 or 4 years old, I'd go out riding in the car with mom and dad, and I already knew all the songs off mom's Hank Williams and George Jones records by heart. I remember just sitting in the back seat and singing them at the top of my lungs.

Keith Whitley

I laid my country music aside for quite a while... because bluegrass audiences didn't care to hear it. But it just kept haunting me.

Keith Whitley

On my first album nobody asked me for a lot of advice. It was a producer's album. We were sent the same type songs with stock melodies. It was my first album and I was happy to do about anything they'd ask me.

Keith Whitley

I believe in 'Hard Livin'.' The song has a lot of potential. I sang it on the road for about a year before I put it on an album. The crowds really seemed to like it.

Keith Whitley

It's not so uncommon for me to get so wrapped up in a song that I cry several times when I sing them. That's the difference between my music and some of the other folks.

Keith Whitley

They say country music stands for more than the rural life. It's about life, period, whether lived in a high-rise or a hollow. I don't think rural or urban has that much to do with it.

Keith Whitley

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

Keith Whitley

I thought everybody had to drink to be in this business.

Keith Whitley

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

Keith Whitley

I don't remember ever not wanting to be a country singer. Even as a little kid, that was my dream.

Keith Whitley

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.

Keith Whitley

I was about 14, and I got hooked on the music of the Stanley Brothers.

Keith Whitley

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.

Keith Whitley

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.

Keith Whitley