Music made me feel like I was sexy. Music made me feel like I wasn't just a blind guy.
— Jose Feliciano
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 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 became a teen idol. At the time, it embarrassed me.
As a Hispanic American, this country has done a lot for me, and I think that people have to be more grateful for what they have in this country.
I like Maroon 5, Swedish House Mafia and others.
When my career took off it surprised me, I was only 22. To have that much success so fast, I just wasn't prepared.
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.'
I sang the National Anthem with soul.
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.
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've been a fan of Elvis since I was 11, so for me, it was a real thrill to make an album of all my favorite Elvis songs.
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 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.
I take pride in the fact that I was the first Hispanic artist to really crack the English market.
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.
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.
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.
Actually, being blind is not so bad. If you're born this way, you never know anything else and you don't wonder about it. Though I'd hate to have lost my sight after being able to see.
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.
I didn't have romances when I was in school. Girls didn't want to go out with me because I was blind.
I was the first artist to put the national anthem on the charts, and I'm thrilled.
If I've influenced people, so be it, but I don't dwell on those kinds of things. I just put out my music. If I influence someone without knowing it, I'm happy about it. I try not to think about those things because it's not about me.
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!
I don't think kneeling during the anthem is such a bad thing.
Pioneers will always get the stones, when everyone later gets the accolades.
When I was 15, I became an avid fan of Andres Segovia. He brought so much respectability to the guitar.
People are really surprised by the fact that I keep in touch with the latest trends rather than retreating to the distant past.
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.
The accordion was the first instrument I played, when I was 7 years old.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.
I always wanted to be the first true Latino to break the American barrier, to be on the American charts.
I always tell my wife she's married to the Puerto Rican Elvis.
When I did the national anthem, I did a soulful, kind of gospel-y version, but it was controversial with the war veterans, just the people who wanted to hear it the old, clinical, atmospheric way, and I didn't want to sing it like that.
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.
No one can pigeon-hole me because I play everything, and I did that on purpose.
I just do my thing, what I feel.
From 1969 to 1973, I was never played on radio stations.
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.
To me, my guitar has always been my orchestra.
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.
It is always good to make new friends.
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.
My parents did not want us to lose our culture and our language. And that was a good thing.
Some people wanted me deported - as if you can be deported to Puerto Rico.
