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.
— Leon Russell
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.
It's kind of depressing to make a lot of records and not get the kind of response they deserve.
I have a certain amount of difficulty dealing with too much limelight.
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 often haven't heard the music since I've recorded it. I don't listen to it. When I do hear it, like at someone's house, I'll listen. I'm probably the most pleased with the stuff I did with New Grass Revival.
I'm kind of the Forrest Gump of rock n' roll.
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 was afraid of the press.
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.
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 used to play on Phil Spector's records, and he liked to use three pianists.
Songwriting was very tough for me... I would go in and sit and hope for inspiration to come, and it was rarely forthcoming.
I was raised in the Methodist Church, which is a very Germanic, military kind of music they have there. I heard this other music on the radio: Pentecostal. That was right up my street.
I scarcely talk to reporters at all.
It's like, baseball is a very good game, but it's very difficult to explain to somebody, if you stop and think about it. I just feel my life is like that.
I've always sort of been at odds with radio programmers.
My first job in a country band was after I moved to California.
The Pentecostals had horns, drums, guitars, huge choirs, and screaming and dancing and all kinds of stuff. That was for me.
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.
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 make records all the time. But making records is not quite the same as getting them to the audience.
I am not aware of my public image or what people think of me. I don't evaluate myself that way.
I'm just concerned with going about my business and making the records I want to make.
I've grown up on Bob Dylan and all that, but there was a certain standard set up by people before 1955.
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.
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.
When you play with another piano player, it's just second nature to play the parts that need to be played.
I started playing in nightclubs when I was about 14 in Oklahoma.
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 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.
When I say I don't get involved in politics, I merely mean that I don't talk to reporters about it.
California always struck me as a police state.
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.
Actually, I didn't listen to country music very much in Oklahoma. I listened to blues and rock n' roll.
The doctor who pulled me out at birth damaged my second and third vertebrae. But without those tugs, I probably would have been a regular guy selling insurance in Texas or something.
I'm always having people come up to me and say I saved their life - but I don't remember it!
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'll work as long as I can. I'm happy with my life.
I really am serious abut catfish farming. I'm very interested in aquaculture.
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.
My whole family's been involved with music, and it's been so since the minstrel days.
I had a whole bunch of bad country songs, so I put 'em all on an album.
I got this book called 'How to Write the Popular Song.' I read that and went through all the things they suggested, and I learned how to do it.
One of the features of being a piano player is playing as an accompanist for other people.
Apparently I was a Billboard top touring act of 1973, but nobody told me.
There was a period in my life when I was trying to write standards: songs that everybody recorded. I did a pretty good run of it.
I remember reading 'Catcher in the Rye,' but I don't think I got it.
The first canon of my religion is that you shouldn't try to convince anybody to believe like you do.
For a couple of years, I'd work from 6 to 11 P.M., then 1 to 5 A.M., and then got up and tried to go to school. That was pretty rough, but I got a lot of experience playing music.
