It is always good to make new friends.
Jose Feliciano
To me, my guitar has always been my orchestra.
When I did the anthem, I did it with the understanding in my heart and mind that I did it because I'm a patriot. I was trying to be a grateful patriot. I was expressing my feelings for America when I did the anthem my way instead of just singing it with an orchestra.
When I first heard Bob Dylan, I'll be honest, I didn't like him. But I was shallow of mind and didn't understand the poetry. I just judged him on his singing and his guitar playing.
My parents did not want us to lose our culture and our language. And that was a good thing.
I was very, very fortunate that 'Chico and the Man' was on TV, that helped me quite a bit. Of course, having the No. 1 Christmas song in the Spanish market, 'Feliz Navidad,' doesn't hurt either.
My first memory of playing music was when I was 3 years old in Puerto Rico. I played percussion on a tin can behind my uncle, who played the cuatro.
I take pride in the fact that I was the first Hispanic artist to really crack the English market.
I loved John Lennon, by the way.
One day I heard Ray Charles on the radio and I found out he was blind. I thought, 'You know what, if there's room for Ray, there might be room for Jose.'
I did whole Latin albums and it was like Beatlemania for me in the Latin world, the screaming girls, not being able to leave the hotel, at the airport met by screaming fans. That was something!
It taught the English to speak Spanish and it taught the Spanish to speak English. If we had more songs such as that, it would solve the immigration problem in a hurry. But there can't be another 'Feliz Navidad.'
New York will always be a part of me no matter where I go.
I was growing up at a time when music was growing and changing so fast. I had learned all the big band sounds of the 1940s, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey. But then along came Chuck Berry, Les Paul, Fats Domino and I figured out how to make their music as well.
I didn't mean for it to cause such a furor, but I was the first guy to ever do the national anthem with a guitar. Everyone else had the big brass band. Nowadays it's tracks that they sing to, but in my day, we had no tracks. And I was the only orchestra that I knew that was the best orchestra and that was me and my guitar.
I felt bad about the controversy because they stopped playing my songs on American radio stations. But there was nothing wrong with what I did. Now everybody sings the national anthem the way they want.
I mean, it wasnt like I had said to myself beforehand, 'OK, I'm gonna go out there and sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in the weirdest way possible and cause a commotion.' I just sang it the way I felt it I sang it the only way I could.
I know Ritchie Valens in 1959 had 'La Bamba' but to be totally Spanish - because, you know, Ritchie didn't speak Spanish - but to be a total Latin artist like myself, to be out in a field where there weren't any categories for Latinos... I felt good that I was maybe - I didn't know it at the time - but I felt good that I opened the door.
God did not want me to be a blind beggar on the street, alone and bitter. He gave me music, first to be my companion and then to be my salvation.
I have genuine respect for women and I want to win their respect. I don't want them to look at me and say, 'Oh, another man with the same attitudes as most men.'
I taught myself until I was about 16. And then I studied classical guitar with some teachers.
I have no regrets, though I was the first artist to stylize the national anthem, and I got a lot of protests for it. I have no regrets. America has been good to me. I'm glad that I'm here.
The day I stop learning and I don't try to make myself better on the guitar, that's the day I hang it up and say, 'Goodbye.'
When I came on in '68, I was really the lone wolf.
I went through the immigration thing. But when I got to New York it wasn't so tough for me. I went to school. I went to P.S. 57, then I went to the Lighthouse for the Blind on 59th St. I guess being blind is a great leveler.
Now everybody has been doing the national anthem in their own style, but in 1968 I was the one that took the heat. It cut my career for quite a while.
The accordion was the first instrument I played, when I was 7 years old.
It's a wonderful thing to play with symphony orchestras - I've played with many - but it's really special in Israel because you have so many great musicians.
Some people wanted me deported - as if you can be deported to Puerto Rico.
I just happened to be Latino, and like any artist, I was trying to forge a career. If I opened doors for others, that's great, but nobody starts out with those aspirations.
I'm kind of iffy on the Latin Grammys because I think we fought so hard, for example, to get the American side of the Grammys to open categories for us... But I support the Latin Grammys in the sense I'm glad that we have them.
I always tell my wife she's married to the Puerto Rican Elvis.
Playing guitar was a calling, but I never realized that it was going to be a career. It was just something I did out of love.
People are really surprised by the fact that I keep in touch with the latest trends rather than retreating to the distant past.
I'm not like other guitar players. In fact, I'm not even like most acoustic players because I use the nylon-string acoustic. I do play steel-string and the electric guitar, too, because I love rock 'n' roll and guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. But my bread and butter has always been the nylon-string.
I think I am different from most blind people because my agility is not that of a blind person - I don't shuffle my feet when I walk. In fact, I have no, as I call them, 'blindisms.'
The only thing I can say to the people of Israel is that I love them and I am a strong ally.
I always wanted to be the first true Latino to break the American barrier, to be on the American charts.
In 1966 I recorded my first bolero album. I was about 18 years old then and I recorded it because I wanted my parents to know that I hadn't lost my identity of being Latino.
Feliz Navidad' has interfaced the English and Spanish cultures to come together and after all, we're living in a multi-cultural world.
Very few guitarists play nylon-string. They don't know how to get the sound out of them. That's something I've spent a lot of time on.
I don't think Hank Greenberg thought of himself as the first Jewish baseball player - he was a baseball player who happened to be Jewish. I'm an artist who happens to be Latin.
In 1970, my label decided I should do a Christmas album and I put a bunch of tunes together. We couldn't decide what to call it and so I said 'Why not just say Merry Christmas in Spanish? Feliz Navidad.' They said, 'That's cool, Jose, but we need a title song.' So I just sat down and started to play.
RCA wanted me to change my name. They asked me around 1965, when they first signed me. They said, 'Feliciano is too Latin.' I said, 'That's who I am. I'm Jose Feliciano.' They wanted me to change my name to Joe Phillips.
When you've had a chance to live some experiences then you can really write, and not having lived that much when I was young I didn't have much to write about. Now having seen life, the songs seem to come easier.
I contend that if it wasn't for Jimi, the gadgets we use for electric guitars now wouldn't have happened. He was an inventor, in a sense - as well as being great artist.
The fact I'm blind has been a great help to my career. If I'd been sighted I'd have played baseball and got into trouble like all other kids on my block.
Pioneers will always get the stones, when everyone later gets the accolades.
I thought I'd be spending my life making brooms, mops, chairs and things. That's fine for some blind people, but I wanted something more out of life. Music seemed the best way.
I have very heightened senses - not just my hearing but my sense of smell.
