Mel Tillis Quotes

You know, it comes from my mother’s side of the family. She had seven sisters and one brother, and all of them could play instruments. I suppose I picked it up from that.

You know, being an entertainer is partly being on the road, and a lot of your songs come from the road.

You have to insulate yourself – I’m talking about from everything, people can be talking to you and you won’t hear ’em – that’s how you write a song. And I haven’t been able to do that over here ’cause I’m so busy and then, when I am off, I want to get away from music.

Well, you know, back then there wasn’t many albums, it was the singles. You sold singles.

Well, no, you can prepare it all you want, but I’d still stutter.

Or in the early days we didn’t have the bus, we had a station wagon.

No, my son’s a songwriter and he does that.

I’m not retiring.

I’m gonna do between 75 and 100 dates. A lot of it will be in Laughlin, Nevada; I’ll be there for two weeks. And I’ll work some casinos here and there, and the fair dates.

I’ll do about 13 shows in Branson next year, and I’ll be performing at the Grand Palace.

I remember li’l ol’ Hank Jr. – he was just a baby back in them days, you know – but he used to hang around. His mama would bring him around. He was just a natural.

I didn’t get to meet Hank Williams. I was in the Air Force on Okinawa when he passed away.

But Patsy, she was a great, great girl. And Brenda Lee is a wonderful person, and her mama Grace. I’ve known those folks for years and years and years.

But now I’ve been in the arena for 47 years and I stutter less today than I did in those days.

But in those days – in the mid-’50s, early ’60s – there was less than 300 radio stations that were playing country music and a lot of that wasn’t full time.

But if you put a script up in front of me to read, or a cue card, I couldn’t do it without stuttering.

But I’ve got a lot of ideas, I bought me a ranch in Florida and I still have my farm in Ashland City, Tennessee so I’m gonna spend a little time at each one of those places and you’ll probably hear some more songs out of me.

And you know, we’d go to church. We were Baptists. And every now and then there’d be a tent would set up, and it was the Holiness folks. And we liked their music.

And they turned around and leased it to The Assembly Of God Churches – their headquarters are in Springfield, Missouri. They leased it to them for the first year. Then, after the first year, they will donate it to the church.

And then, when I started to school, I found out I couldn’t talk.