Keith Whitley Quotes

In other words, musicians know that going back to the Spoonful, what we were doing was not copying.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

Our influences are who we are. It's rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision; even Daniel Johnston sounds like the Beatles. And that's the problem with the bands I'm always asked about, the ones derivative of the early Seattle sound. They don't dilute their influences enough.

I love the pioneers like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but when I write music, it comes out in my own way.

If you make modern rap music, how do you write without ripping off anyone else? It's just about having a distinct voice in your songs.

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do, and then just go for it.

I try to steal something from the great singers. Of course, I don't want to imitate their sound, but I try to do a sort of compromise.

I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice.

There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.

I knew I was going to do a country album one day. But I was just trying to figure out for the life of me, what we were going to do to make it different, unique.

What I've learned is that it's okay to take from heroes, such as Debussy, but it has to be filtered through my own personality so that ultimately it's me.

I was never much of a singer. I was terrible. It's embarrassing: I was trying to sound like everybody else. I went through a big Cure phase, so I was trying to do that kind of dramatic voice.

I'll never quit playing country music, or at least acknowledging it, always, as the cornerstone of what I am.

If you're not observing the world around you, in some sense you're not really an artist because then that means you're just replicating other people's stuff, or, I don't even know what you're doing.

If you have music that sounds like what you cover, people won't be able to differentiate who you are.

No matter what I do, my songs come out in a certain style, and if that sounds like Dead Kennedys, then there's probably a reason for it. Don't forget, I wrote most of those songs, music and lyrics.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn't copy my style from anybody.

I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own.

I'm not trying to emulate or imitate. But I do believe that I embody that spirit from Robert Johnson on up.

Even though other people wrote my songs I put my stamp on them. I have a connection, but there is no truer connection than an artists and their own song.

I wanted to come through with my own voice and, hopefully, have it affect people. I want people to know that I'm not an Elvis impersonator.

We don't need another Woody. Even Bob Dylan knew he couldn't be Woody Guthrie... I like Woody Guthrie fine, but I don't need the 50th generation version of it.

For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.

It's easy for a singer to sometimes pick up on another singer's sound, but that's just copying.

I'm not trying to feed off of a concept that another artist had - that's not what I do.