People are going to wake up to this great reservoir of music we've created in America - cakewalks, one-steps, boogie-woogie, country and western. I had a bit to do with one of those traditions.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Country music has become the music that best represents the reality of American life.
There's been a shift: Country music is popular music now. Every other genre wants to come over to our land.
You know, traditional country music is something that's going to be around forever.
Country music belongs to America.
I love that there's this tradition of being able to discuss the heaviest topics and the gnarliest stuff that goes down in people's lives in traditional Southern American music.
I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.
We're a staple in the American music culture. Like us or not, we're here to stay.
I'm not suggesting our music is the only music, but I am suggesting that there are certain elements in America's culture that are so precious that it would be a shame for them to go down the drain.
At its best, American music is the soundtrack of our long - and often painful - march toward a more perfect union.
I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music - gospel, blues, jazz and R&B - is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you.