When I first came to Nashville, people hardly gave country music any respect. We lived in old cars and dirty hotels, and we ate when we could.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
One of the reasons I wanted to do a show about Nashville in Nashville was because when I lived here, the hardest thing to go out and hear was country music. Country was taking place inside the studio and it was an export.
And to me, I had come out of Texas, and during that time was when I realized that a lot of people in Nashville, their idea of what country music was was not the same as mine.
I love Nashville. It's such a great town, and I'm a huge country music fan. That's what I listen to on the radio in the car.
A lot of my music is very roots-oriented, and that's country and soul. I've been in every roadhouse in the South, soaking in all of that... Nashville is like a second home to me, and I'm just gravitating toward the songs.
For me, and this may not be everybody, but because I do love country music so much, there's such a feeling of home in Nashville, especially because it's such a small town. You bring up one song, everybody knows who wrote it, everybody knows their mother and what their cell number is, and all of the stories.
I think it took me a while to convince Nashville that what I do is genuine and my heart's in the right place, and I love country music.
Country music is worldwide - it's not just Nashville and Texas.
The great thing about Nashville back in the day was that the old guys hung out where the young guys were. The established writers like Harlan Howard and Jack Clement gave us encouragement and passed the guitar, you know? Chet Atkins let me sit in on his sessions. Everybody was good to us, and everybody loved the music.
When I got to Nashville, people started asking me about how I got into country music. I'd tell them I came from a place where people wore cowboy hats for a real reason.
Nashville is wicked. It's like a proper music community, but it's also quintessentially American. You bump into people there with cowboy hats that spit in jars and call you 'boy.' I just love that.