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.
— Ry Cooder
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.
Who does this, at age 71, try to put a tour together from scratch? I have to say it's scary at times. But I like a challenge 'cause it keeps you on your toes.
The Delmore Brothers is hit music - very, very popular - and it still retains that rural flavor and simplicity. I always think of it as family music, really, because families sang it.
Sure, immigrants will do work that no-one else will do. There was even a movie about it - 'A Day Without Mexicans.'
I hate films. Films make me sick now, and if something makes me sick, I always back off.
On any given day, if I play the guitar, I can put myself somewhere. I always thought, 'This is the way you go.' It's like a magic carpet, see?
When I made the first album, I was 24, and at that age, you have nothing to say. I just played the music I loved and tried to do it justice.
The story of American pop music is the story of failure. The blues, country music, it's not the story of success. People don't win; they lose.
I like classical music. I especially like the French composers: Ravel in particular. Debussy. That's so soothing in a nervous world.
Promoters don't book you 'cause they like you; they do it 'cause there's good business to be done.
If it hadn't been for record people like Ralph Peer, the Chess brothers, and Alan Lomax, then life would've been unbelievably dull, and I would've been sacking groceries somewhere and probably, at this point, running a little 7-Eleven down by the airport.
To me, the essence of the music is the most important thing.
I just feel that music is a great life because it's very rewarding. It's a gratification. You do this for yourself, and you also do this for other people.
I'm a great lover of ballads.
To me, the Internet is a big scam.
I'm sort of an osmotic fellow.
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.
People who love the applause should have it, but I don't care for it.
I used to sneak gospel tunes into my old records, just as kind of a personal thing.
I wanted to be a car pinstriper, but there was nobody to teach me how to do it. So I said, 'Music's good too. I'll do that maybe, since I can't work out how to do this pinstriping.'
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.
Everyone thought my first album would be instrumental, but I didn't want to do it - it took me eight months to make.
It's good to see more young people playing instruments.
The world will always love Cuban music, however it changes.
Nat King Cole - I listen to him a lot.
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.
I love listening to gospel records.
Santa Monica, where I have always lived, is not a town where you will find storefront Church of God in Christ churches. So, the whole idea of gospel quartet singing is something I never knew existed until I began to hear it on record.
I always think you should push your envelope every chance you get.
Beautiful tunes are all very good and fine, and great musicians are always great, but that alone isn't enough. Most folks, when they see movies or hear records, need something that they find pulls them in, draws them in, and appeals to them beyond just the notes.
'Buena Vista Social Club' is a great song and a difficult tune to play.
I keep my mind on track, and I don't get mad, and I don't get frustrated. Well, I do... but creative work, it's a way of controlling all that.
'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.
Music is a treasure hunt. You dig and dig, and sometimes you find something.
I don't like being watched, and I don't like being an entertainer.
I always loved country gospel from back when I was a teenager in high school and started listening to bluegrass quite a lot.
I had a lot of luck in meeting great musicians who were kind enough to show me things.
I got a reputation for being 'eclectic' or some damn thing like that, but to me, the different kinds of music I play are all the same stuff - good time music - and it is the only stuff I can do.
I always have felt that most people don't have the first idea about what musicians, in the traditional sense - I don't mean in the modern media fake way, but traditionally - what they went through, what their lives were like.
Critics don't sell records, unfortunately. No one reads what they write anyway.
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.
Country hillbilly music I love. Always have.
It's crazy to make records nobody buys. It's just a waste of time.
The ocean is very comfortable. I could never live inland.
Musicians understand each other through means other that speaking.
You have to be able to improvise and respond to what's going on around you. Then you might get a good piece of work done.
If you're taught to hate and fear a people or a country, and it works, it's because of your ignorance of that country. You have no contact with it, nor do you know what you're hating and fearing.
The '50s was the golden age of music all over the world for some crazy, 'X-File'-like reason I can't quite understand.
I don't understand the public, but I do believe the public is oversold and underrated every day. Give the people something interesting, something to chew on, I say.
