You go through these phases. That's how life is. Over the long term, you just can't do one thing. I saw that back in the Sixties when I was getting started.
— Ry Cooder
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.
People respond to any good you can do in music.
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.
I can't help what people write or think. If somebody thinks I'm a serious archivist, they're wrong. That's been a problem. It's a shame people take that attitude, because it affects how they listen to the music. It's a big mistake to treat any pop music that way.
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!
Music creates complicity, and then you feel less isolated.
Travelling is hard. I'm no traveller. I hate flying, and I hate hotels.
With country, it's hard to penetrate the thick layers of commercialism that have been applied like shellac coatings over the real thing.
American global economic imperialism is a fact. It's a known fact. It's a simple fact.
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.
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've listened to blues my whole life. I know it, I play it, I understand it.
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.
If something grooves and you like the sound, then that's all you need.
People have all sorts of expectations which you can't meet. Me, I'm so reclusive I stay away from such things as much as I can. I never go anywhere.
If every song is in the past tense, that's a drag, so you have to predict the future.
I always like spoken word records.
I didn't want tunes that preach heaven: you know, life on Earth is bad and heaven is the only hope we have. I don't quite care for that. I mean, when people sing that stuff, it's good when they do it, but I didn't want to do it.
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.
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.
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.
Politics runs on power and money and on ignorance.
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.
You can play as good as you want, but you have to sing from a place of living.
I've done a fair amount of commercials. I did a bunch of Champion spark plug ads and Levi's and Molson Beer. You wouldn't know it. But some of it's damn good.
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've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.
What kills music in films is when it's done as performance, drawing attention to the fact that someone's in the background playing it.
It all started back in '69 when I worked with Jack Nitzche on 'Performance.' That was my first experience of doing soundtracks, and I've enjoyed doing them ever since.
When the real world intrudes on your musical fantasies, I get put out.
Chavez Ravine is the dawn of Chicano consciousness.
I always thought East L.A. music was so dreamy and languid and kinda greasy.
Some people have career plans, long-range career plans. I don't know anything about that. I'm no good at it.
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.
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.
I think all the music I do, which ties together, as far as I'm concerned, is fun and entertaining.
The Woody Guthrie 'Dust Bowl' tunes were really fascinating.
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?'
After all is said and done and institutions fail, people still have some ability to care for each other.
Music is all starting to sound alike in the modern era. Afro-pop sounds exactly like L.A. pop - there's no difference, no ambience, no real resonance.
I'm a man of peace.
Film work is a job I like to do because I really love to solve problems.
It's tremendously expensive to make a record on the basis of writing checks.
The blues is so expressive - nostalgic but not sentimental, mournful but not pathetic, so humble and close to the earth. It's a nuance-filled thing.
I'm used to music as a tool, taking the various elements and then making something completely new out of them. And writing film music is the perfect opportunity to do that, because you can look at the film and then just let your imagination soar.
Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten.
I didn't come from a very rigid background, where there's a clan or a tribe or a religion.
I've been wanting an ice cream truck forever.
