My country stuff, it might sound like Hank Williams - that's just the way it is. But I'd rather sound like Hank Williams than Trace Atkins.
When I was in Utah there, first learning the kind of music I love, my favorite singer was T. Texas Tyler. So my friend, Norman Ritchie, the traveling teenage sage, started calling me U. Utah Phillips.
I've always liked country music. It's a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America.
I don't really listen to pop-country, but I like really, really old country that's closer to folk. Like Johnny Cash, who is considered country.
Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk-rock.
I'm a big Marty Robbins fan. I love Marty Robbins. Of course, everybody does. That's not such a big shock.
To me, country music is like the blues, but it's something very hip and - I don't want to say commercial - but it's very worldly and good listening.
I used to be fast and loose with the term 'country' because I didn't know what else to call my music. I still don't.
I've come to find out everybody loves ol' David Allan Coe, even people like Kid Rock.
I had been raised on country and western in Missouri. But gospel was great.
I would say country is the one type of music I've spent the least amount of time with in my life. I grew up in Virginia, where there was a lot of it, but I was more interested in rock and roll. Southern rock.
I grew up in Arizona listening to Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton.
The cowboy music twanged in the roadhouse and carried across the fields, all sadness. It was all right with me. I kissed my baby and we put out the lights.
I was a folk singer who became totally over the edge with country music. I found my voice and style working with Gram Parsons. I learned how to listen to George Jones records and the Louvin Brothers.
Country music tends to be so sentimental and homespun, it's easy to stumble into self-parody, but Haggard has brought a freshness to the themes that places him alongside Hank Williams and Willie Nelson as one of the greatest country music writers.
