Hank Williams Quotes
Father of contemporary country music
Folk songs express the dreams and prayers and hopes of the working people.
The way I feel is that if you don't like folk music, stay away from my shows.
You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly.
I learned to play the git-tar from an old colored man in the streets of Montgomery. He was named Tetot, and he played in a colored street band.
I'm nothing but a drunkard. Why do people expect me to be anything else?
In this business, if you're a success, there's some folks who actually worship you. I have been to some places where it's impossible to walk across the stage without having the major portion of my outfit torn off for souvenirs.
If you think I'm a drunk, you shoulda seen my old man.
If you're gonna sing, sing 'em something they can understand.
There ain't nobody I'd rather have alongside me in a fight than my mama with a broken bottle in her hand.
There ain't a man livin' who hasn't talked to his dog.
I've just signed a contract to make records in Nashville. It won't amount to much at first, but after a year or so, I will really be in the money.
If anybody in my business knew as much about their business as the public did, they'd be all right!
Personally, I cain't stand classical stuff, but I don't tell the world about it. I just turn the radio off. Now, why cain't these folks who don't like my kind of music do the same?
It makes me mad to hear these popular orchestras make a jammed-up comedy of a song like 'Wreck on the Highway.' It ain't a funny song.
I have been living in Montgomery so long that I call it home.
To sing like a hillbilly, you had to have lived like a hillbilly. You had to have smelt a lot of mule manure.
Somebody got the idea nobody didn't listen to my kind 'a music. I told everybody on the radio that this was my last program. 'If anybody's enjoyed it,' I said, 'I'd like to hear from 'em.' I got 400 cards and letters that afternoon and the next mornin'... They decided they wanted to keep my kind of music.
I wish I was back at WSFA making twelve dollars a week. At least then, if someone come to see me, I'd know they were coming to see me. Now I reckon they just want something from me.
I think I'm good enough to play and sing.
I don't know one note from another.
My mother played the organ in church at Georgiana, and I sat on the seat beside her.
You booked him, and you didn't worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God.
I have noticed that these pop bands will play our hillbilly songs when they cain't eat any other way!
I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself.