To me, the Internet is a big scam.
Ry Cooder
Uncle Dave Macon was a great balladeer and banjo player from the early part of the 19th century... He would take a social problem or something that he was looking at and make up a clever little song about it, you know, in a language everyone understood, a man of the people.
Back in the early '70s, when Susie and I were first married, we had a little house that we rented, and we used to have parties. People would come, and they wouldn't leave. I used to get so tired. I'd put on the Stanley Brothers, 'Songs for the Good People,' and the house would clear in five minutes. It was not liked; it was alien. It was weird.
If something grooves and you like the sound, then that's all you need.
Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can't stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That's true on record and on stage.
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.
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.
I don't like being watched, and I don't like being an entertainer.
I like classical music. I especially like the French composers: Ravel in particular. Debussy. That's so soothing in a nervous world.
I always think you should push your envelope every chance you get.
I used to sneak gospel tunes into my old records, just as kind of a personal thing.
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.
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.
With country, it's hard to penetrate the thick layers of commercialism that have been applied like shellac coatings over the real thing.
The ocean is very comfortable. I could never live inland.
I love listening to gospel records.
Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten.
I hate films. Films make me sick now, and if something makes me sick, I always back off.
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.
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've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.
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.
Being the front guy is a hard job.
The Woody Guthrie 'Dust Bowl' tunes were really fascinating.
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.
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.
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 didn't come from a very rigid background, where there's a clan or a tribe or a religion.
Film work is a job I like to do because I really love to solve problems.
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.
Some people have career plans, long-range career plans. I don't know anything about that. I'm no good at it.
I like the idea that something happens to everybody who comes to L.A. - whether they are Mexican, Irish, black, or hillbillies. You come here, and you leave all your traditions behind. And since there's no traditions here, you just make one up.
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.
The world will always love Cuban music, however it changes.
I'm a great lover of ballads.
Chavez Ravine is the dawn of Chicano consciousness.
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!
It's crazy to make records nobody buys. It's just a waste of time.
I've listened to blues my whole life. I know it, I play it, I understand it.
I had a lot of luck in meeting great musicians who were kind enough to show me things.
After all is said and done and institutions fail, people still have some ability to care for each other.
Travelling is hard. I'm no traveller. I hate flying, and I hate hotels.
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.
Musicians understand each other through means other that speaking.
Everyone thought my first album would be instrumental, but I didn't want to do it - it took me eight months to make.
People who aren't as interested in recorded music as they used to be will say, 'Oh, 'Buena Vista?' Loved it.' And I'll say, 'Well, how about any of my other recent records. I've been doing some pretty good ones. You like those?' And they go, 'Huh?'
Nat King Cole - I listen to him a lot.
Promoters don't book you 'cause they like you; they do it 'cause there's good business to be done.
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.
'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.
