Quotes About Music

The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man [sic] and time." Igor Stravinsky, quoted in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465, Ch. 3. from Igor Stravinsky' Autobiography (1962). New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., p. 54.

The perfection of performance has escalated to the extent that the music itself is threatened with relegation.

They used to say it was bad for Indians to drink, but it's bad for anybody. When they drink they lose their cool, a lot of us. Like when we played with Sonny Boy, I would never get paid, you know. He would drink up all the money.

Move It on Over" was released on June 6, 1947, and, two months later, it became Hank's first Billboard hit.

In general, those from outside the southern culture built a style around exaggerations of southern music, and missed the lonesome hillbilly and blues feel that was its core. In the quest for abandon, they also failed to understand that southern music is lazy music—at any tempo.

he heard the performer who, more than any other, would shape his music. Roy Acuff was twenty years older than Hank, and outlived him by almost forty years.

Hank's achievement lay elsewhere. He cast the highs and lows of everyday life in terms that were simple enough to register quickly over a car radio or jukebox yet profound enough to bear repeated listening. His songs were the true-to-life blues. Any art form at its best has the one-on-oneness of physical intimacy, and that's what Hank brought to country music.

Hank was barely influenced by country music's first superstar, Jimmie Rodgers, who succumbed to tuberculosis in 1933

Jumbalaya,' [sic] 'Cold, Cold Heart,' 'You Win Again,' and 'Lovesick Blues

Hank's music was called "hillbilly music," and the little respect it had could be attributed almost entirely to Roy Acuff

Within ten weeks of his death, Hank had as many albums on the market as he did all the years he lived; hundreds more would follow. The oil well that Hank Williams became in death was starting to gush

In Acuff's hands, country music was just that: music for the country people of the South and Southeast. He bridged the gulf between ancient string band music and the modern era, and came to epitomize country music's innate conservatism.

Lonesome Whistle." Credited to Hank and Jimmie Davis, it was one of a long line of prison songs.

Hank was happy to cash the checks as the palm court orchestras played his songs, but on a far deeper level he was suspicious of the trend, seeing it as a dilution of his music. "These pop bands," he told an interviewer in Charleston, South Carolina, "will play our hillbilly songs when they cain't eat any other way.

Helms had probably figured out that the steel guitar was the crucial instrument for Hank; its notes were the wordless cry that completed his vocal lines. The steel guitar sustained the mood and took most of the solos

His songs now accompany television commercials and have been reinterpreted across the musical spectrum, from the British punk acts to jazz divas like Cassandra Wilson and Norah Jones. Hank's songs, in fact, are almost everywhere. As the records grow smaller, Hank Williams grows bigger.

every night as he performed. The reception even surprised Hank. He knew he was the king of the honky-tonks, but now he had stadium crowds eating out of his hand, and legit entertainers working as his supporting acts

Grand Ole Opry appearances were a loss leader. Like

Death is a good career move if it can be timed right, and no one ever timed it better than Hank Williams

In 1950, there were four hundred thousand jukeboxes on location serviced by fifty-five hundred jukebox operators.

On August 7, 1948, Hank made his first appearance on the Louisiana Hayride. He was the fifth act on the opening 8:00–8:30 p.m. segment.

The second Sterling session saw the birth of one of Hank's trademarks, the "crack" rhythm: an electric guitar keeping time on the deadened bass strings. Without drums in his lineup, Hank used the electric guitar to emphasize the pulse. It was the sound that Johnny Cash later made into a trademark, adding a little rhythmic flourish to make "boom-chicka-boom.

Audrey was the first of many who found Hank more lovable dead.

IT wasn't a blues, it wasn't a country song, and it wasn't even from Hank Williams' pen, but "Lovesick Blues" was the spark that ignited his career. It