I am happy with what comes, I don't have expectations of any stature.
Leon Russell
My hobby is silence.
The first canon of my religion is that you shouldn't try to convince anybody to believe like you do.
I played on a few Frank Sinatra sessions.
When I was born, I had a birth injury in my second and third vertebrae. It gave me what they called spastic paralysis, which is actually cerebral palsy.
I was always trying to write standards, songs that anybody can sing. I figured that's where the money was.
For years and years, I would sit in my studio, and I wouldn't have any inspiration. I'd write one or two songs a year.
I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.
My chops have always been sort of weak, because the right side of my body was paralyzed a little bit. It was very limiting. I have to design stuff I can play, and it took me a year and a half to figure out how to hold a guitar pick.
I was playing with George Harrison one time, and George loves takes. This song was up to Take 160. I said, 'George, do you want me to play the same thing or 160 different things?' It drove me crazy because, in general, I'm ready to play my part.
I love bipolar people.
I'll work as long as I can. I'm happy with my life.
When I say I don't get involved in politics, I merely mean that I don't talk to reporters about it.
I think probably my main advice to new artists is if you want to be in the music business, you need to be dang serious about it because it's a rough business.
I started writing rather late in the game. I was fascinated about the story about how Bob Dylan, for 'Nashville Skyline,' wrote between takes. So I'd try to sing new songs off the top of my head. I had rather less than spectacular success on that. But a lot of my songs were done that way.
I was on the road with Jerry Lee Lewis when I was 15 - I can't imagine not doing it. That's what I do.
When you play with another piano player, it's just second nature to play the parts that need to be played.
Karen Carpenter was just a singularly amazing singer. There was just not anybody like her.
Watching yourself on film, if you've never watched yourself on film before, you want to go crawl into bed and stay there for a week.
I was afraid of the press.
I'm not as aware of categories in music as some people are. To me it's just music. I'm interested in all kinds of music.
I didn't start out to become famous, so when it disappeared, I thought, well, that happens sometimes.
Words have been the most difficult thing for me. Melodies have been the easiest for me; I have more than enough melodies to go around.
I like that old style of country music - it seems to me that a lot of the modern country music is rehashed rock n' roll.
All my writing takes place during the recording of the master tapes. I never do have songs when I start up an album. I actually write them while I record.
I am not aware of my public image or what people think of me. I don't evaluate myself that way.
When I was in grade school, I had a little duet act with a guy who was a beautiful singer, and somebody recorded it on a wire machine. They played it back for us, and I went, 'I hear Donald, but what is that other ugly voice?' It turned out to be me, of course.
I have damaged nerve endings on the right side, so my piano style comes from designing stuff I can play with my right hand. And some of it effectively mimics classical stuff.
Both economics and politics are false sciences.
I've always felt I struck out with Doris Day. Her son, Terry Melcher, was a producer I worked for at Columbia, and one day, he asked me to go to her house to play piano on a song she was doing. So I get there, and she has about 30 dogs running around the place - turns out she's a dog rescuer.
Oklahoma was a dry state, and consequently, there was no liquor laws. And I was able to take advantage of that by playing in nightclubs at the age of 14. It was real handy.
I've grown up on Bob Dylan and all that, but there was a certain standard set up by people before 1955.
If everybody'd agree to quit using money, I'd be happy to play for free every day for awhile. But I don't play benefits or any kind of fund-raisers. I prefer to play at hospitals, for people who otherwise can't see us. But I can't see playing for causes, whatever the cause may be.
I had two parts of my body: my left side, which was strong and somewhat dumb, and the other side was weak and hard to control but perhaps smarter. It gave me a very strong sense of the duality of the plane that we live in.
My first job in a country band was after I moved to California.
My feet are giving out on me. But I have a wheelchair that folds out on my tour bus. I've also got this little tricycle, so if I want to go someplace, I get those out.
I had a band with David Gates. There was just a lot of opportunity at that time. But I left for Los Angeles the week after I graduated high school, and I actually left to try to get into the advertising business. That was really why I went out to L.A. My music career was almost an accident.
One of the features of being a piano player is playing as an accompanist for other people.
For years, when I was popular, I would face the blank page to write, and I couldn't think of anything that I thought was good enough.
I used to write on pads with a pen but had trouble reading the words the next day. Years later, Bob Dylan taught me to just write and write on a laptop computer. Then I'd print that out. When it was time to write a song, I'd go through the pages and sing melodies to words that moved me.
I wish I had gone into industrial plumbing. That's a joke.
I'm not so much of a person for causes, unless I specifically - for instance, if it's my cause, or some poor people's, I'll try to help. But you won't find me playing for any peace candidates - or any candidates.
All the time I had my success, I didn't know what I was doing. I struggled and struggled and hacked things out without any insight as to why.
I've always sort of been at odds with radio programmers.
I don't think there's any danger of me playing Indian music. However, I did a song of George Harrison's 'Beware of Darkness' that was kind of like that. That was an illusion. I was playing that on a thumbtack piano, and Jim Gordon was playing tablas. He's an amazing player. That was as close to India as I ever got.
I was with my band at a karaoke bar in Japan when it was very big there, and they got up and made fools of themselves without practicing properly. I didn't understand why they were doing that. It was like they were making fun of the genre by performing badly. But I didn't get up and sing, so I don't know what it feels like.
I scarcely talk to reporters at all.
I'm just concerned with going about my business and making the records I want to make.
The Pentecostals had horns, drums, guitars, huge choirs, and screaming and dancing and all kinds of stuff. That was for me.
I studied classical music for a long time, maybe 10 years, and I realized finally I was never going to have the hands to play that stuff.
