Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Beautiful tunes are all very good and fine, and great musicians are always great, but that alone isn't enough.
I think I'm more relaxed; I think I'm more philosophical. I don't get worried as much as I used to about things.
Something has to happen between you and the public, some interface that lets the public in on what you're doing.
I've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.
Sure, immigrants will do work that no-one else will do. There was even a movie about it - 'A Day Without Mexicans.'
Everyone thought my first album would be instrumental, but I didn't want to do it - it took me eight months to make.
The '50s was the golden age of music all over the world for some crazy, 'X-File'-like reason I can't quite understand.
You have to be able to improvise and respond to what's going on around you. Then you might get a good piece of work done.
I always loved country gospel from back when I was a teenager in high school and started listening to bluegrass quite a lot.
Los Angeles is not Mexico City, but we have many fine nightclubs and restaurants here. It is enough. One must not aim too high.
The biggest inspiration I had was to take norteno soul music and fuse it with Mexican music. It was my great big idea to do that.
You have to be around people you trust; otherwise you can't do anything - you're afraid, you're paranoid, and you can't do any work.
I like classical music. I especially like the French composers: Ravel in particular. Debussy. That's so soothing in a nervous world.
What kills music in films is when it's done as performance, drawing attention to the fact that someone's in the background playing it.
If you can't get yourself understood, you may have trouble, so you need some interpretation every now and again wherever you might be.
I toured around for years, but the road was always a drag for me. I never made a dime. In fact, I lost a lot of money - it was horrible.
When I was little, 4 or 5 years old, the first guitar I had was given to me by a blacklisted violinist - a lefty, commie guy, pinko man.
With country, it's hard to penetrate the thick layers of commercialism that have been applied like shellac coatings over the real thing.
I have to think that somewhere on some little island in the Pacific, there's someone's who's great, but I'm probably never going to hear him.
If you're white working with non-white people, you will be branded as a colonialist by some people, regardless of your efforts or intentions.
On any given day, if I play the guitar, I can put myself somewhere. I always thought, 'This is the way you go.' It's like a magic carpet, see?
The story of American pop music is the story of failure. The blues, country music, it's not the story of success. People don't win; they lose.
I keep my mind on track, and I don't get mad, and I don't get frustrated. Well, I do... but creative work, it's a way of controlling all that.
I'm not interested in making folkloric records, but I like to push the traditional format around so that familiar patterns get knocked on the head.
People have all sorts of expectations which you can't meet. Me, I'm so reclusive I stay away from such things as much as I can. I never go anywhere.
The blues is so expressive - nostalgic but not sentimental, mournful but not pathetic, so humble and close to the earth. It's a nuance-filled thing.
Music is all starting to sound alike in the modern era. Afro-pop sounds exactly like L.A. pop - there's no difference, no ambience, no real resonance.
People who get together, regardless of other structures, will find something in common. They are bound to. That was the Pete Seeger let's-all-sing theory.
I just feel that music is a great life because it's very rewarding. It's a gratification. You do this for yourself, and you also do this for other people.
I just feel that music is a great life, because it's very rewarding. It's a gratification. You do this for yourself, and you also do this for other people.
You go through these phases. That's how life is. Over the long term, you just can't do one thing. I saw that back in the Sixties when I was getting started.
Who does this, at age 71, try to put a tour together from scratch? I have to say it's scary at times. But I like a challenge 'cause it keeps you on your toes.
I've done a fair amount of commercials. I did a bunch of Champion spark plug ads and Levi's and Molson Beer. You wouldn't know it. But some of it's damn good.
That's what records do: represent a compressed, heightened version of the sound. Because of the compression of the tubes and microphones and the wax, it's magic!
How many BMWs do you need? How many Rolex watches you gonna wear in your lifetime, for crying out loud? What is it about that kind of desire? I don't understand it.
I don't understand the public, but I do believe the public is oversold and underrated every day. Give the people something interesting, something to chew on, I say.
It all started back in '69 when I worked with Jack Nitzche on 'Performance.' That was my first experience of doing soundtracks, and I've enjoyed doing them ever since.
There are those who make music and movies in a linear way: They plan them, they have a script. Of course, you have to have a script sometimes, but that alone isn't enough.
'Geronimo' was a huge amount of work. That involved 80-piece orchestras and Indians and Tuvans and all kinds of crazy people on that thing. That's a real circus, that score.
All I know is, I play the guitar, beat it out, and sing a song that has some damn resonance that we feel as musicians. We send it out and people get it, and that's a good thing.
The thing I always found about the gospel music was that it reached further into your being if you like, your mind. It takes hold of you - especially if you sing it and play it.
The Delmore Brothers is hit music - very, very popular - and it still retains that rural flavor and simplicity. I always think of it as family music, really, because families sang it.
I give up on pop music. As far as a commercial entity, as far as pop music goes, I quit; I absolutely throw in the towel. I can't handle it. I can't do it. I can't be what they need you to be.
I got a reputation for being 'eclectic' or some damn thing like that, but to me, the different kinds of music I play are all the same stuff - good time music - and it is the only stuff I can do.
If you're taught to hate and fear a people or a country, and it works, it's because of your ignorance of that country. You have no contact with it, nor do you know what you're hating and fearing.
Once you feel that you've learned some skills and you know how to make records, the next thing is, "Do we ever get to make one that people will really like?" Because then we'll have something to do.
R&B and all that stuff was always very spare and spontaneous. Nobody made those records under solid gold situations. It was just in and out, and you didn't labor over the thing. I like music like that.
A microphone has a certain range. It's not as good as your ears, but it will capture an enclosed space, the harmonic content in a room. Nice old tube mikes do that pretty well. And that's a good sound.
I went on tour with Ricky Skaggs and his wife, Sharon White, and the White Family in 2015. It was fantastic. They're all the greatest singers of that country stuff, traditional country up into bluegrass.
In oddball places, the electric guitar has been taken as an almost alien object - this weird, six-stringed instrument that fell down to earth and was then played loud but with traditional grace and intelligence