There were screaming girls, I had to learn as a blind person how to run to a limousine otherwise they'd take my clothes off and stuff. I thought to myself 'how could this happen?' I mean I could see it, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, but Jose Feliciano? It was a mystery to me.
— Jose Feliciano
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.
I got so big in the Latin market, it was a bit like being Elvis Presley. The limousines, the screaming girls - stuff I wasn't used to.
I have very heightened senses - not just my hearing but my sense of smell.
I never expected to have such a long career, it's been 52 years.
I've been playing in Israel since 1971.
I loved John Lennon, by the way.
God gave me a good voice. I have perfect pitch. I don't sing flat.
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'm very proud being Puerto Rican. I'm American. That is what America is made of - people from different lands.
One thing about computers and iPhones is they're making people mentally lazy.
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.'
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'm a one-man band!
I was drawn to the guitar, and still am, because it struck me as the most soulful instrument.
When I came on in '68, I was really the lone wolf.
New York is really where my career somewhat started.
When I was a kid, I could make music out of anything, whether it be a rubber band, a tin can. Whatever it was I made music out of it and so that was my knack.
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 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.'
Everyone is my equal, and that is transferred to my music.
New York will always be a part of me no matter where I go.
I was a teen idol in Latin America.
I didn't write Feliz Navidad to make a lot of money for me.
I didnt go to the high school prom. Couldn't get a date.
My dream was to be a celebrity, to be on TV like Bob Hope was.
I'm a musician first and sight has never had anything to do with it.
I write with my brain. I don't need a computer.
I don't know if it's a legacy, but I love it. In my mind and other people's minds, they know I was the first to stylize the national anthem.
When people don't hear you on the radio they think 'maybe he retired.'
I truly enjoyed the '60s.
I made history and nothing can besmirch that. Nothing can erase that.
I'm lucky that I can play all kinds of music, that it appeals to all of the generations.
Feliz Navidad' has interfaced the English and Spanish cultures to come together and after all, we're living in a multi-cultural world.
Music. It has always showed me that I could do what the other kids couldn't do. So I will keep playing and singing and entertaining, as long as the good Lord lets me. That is my life.
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 think sighted people let their eyes cheat them out of certain things. People who can see don't have a great sense of smell because they don't use it.
I'm Puerto Rican, but I represent everybody.
The only thing I can say to the people of Israel is that I love them and I am a strong ally.
I taught myself until I was about 16. And then I studied classical guitar with some teachers.
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.
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 never knew whether I'd make it as a star but I always wanted to.
If I were to travel with all my instruments, I would need a truck.
I liked the Doors and that kind of music.
I'm in a museum. I'm a relic.
I got tired of seeing people rush through the national anthem so they could have their popcorn and get to the game. Nobody ever sang the anthem with soul. It was always done clinically and they always stuck to the original. I put feeling into it. I sang it in a soulful manner.
You can't write much quality, original music on a concertina.
I never knew Mother Teresa, but I admired her, especially in this day and age when there aren't many heroes.
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.
