I played American football, but I did my best work with baseball.
— Steve Miller
Ooh Poo Pah Doo' was a monster song.
My strongest message is: 'Never give your songs away. Never sign a contract you can't get out of.'
My dad loved Les Paul, and I wanted to be just like that.
I've been blessed to work with so many wonderful musicians and engineers and friends over the years.
We have screwed with our environment. We have a culture that's going crazy, and it's all being propelled by the trillion-dollar advertising corporations.
Record companies, they're just like lemmings.
In some states, the population is pretty low and if 5,000 kids vote, they could completely change the political atmosphere.
I don't even hear radio anymore.
If folks really want music in their community they can do it very cheaply. It doesn't have to be a $50 million program. All we need is just a little real estate.
I've recorded lots of projects, but just haven't bothered to release them.
The audience wants to hear 'Rock n' Me,' 'Space Cowboy,' 'Living in the U.S.A.' When you start to play something else, you can feel the interest and enthusiasm go; the steam goes out of room. They are really 'Greatest Hits' fans and that's what they want to hear. It's disappointing that it's this way in the U.S.
I never considered myself like a pop musician or rock star, because that didn't really exist when I started.
Vinyl's like a really juicy steak compared to like a kind of tough steak or something. It's really good. And once you listen to vinyl and get a chance to hear it, I think anyone will enjoy it more than they will digital.
I like most bands.
Is there one blues guy who was the most sophisticated and influential, like Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong in jazz? Was it Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Robert Johnson, or all of them? I think you have to pick all of them.
Dealing with Jazz at Lincoln Center and its board of directors, who are so great, and then seeing how these Rock Hall guys operate, it's like: 'Really?' It seems like they're total amateurs when it comes to doing shows and contracts.
The digital world is so convenient and nice, but just playing back a vinyl record is a much warmer, hotter, more present feeling.
Very rarely can you bring someone new into a band and have them just fit perfectly, right away.
Being talented was a hard way to make it. But I made it on my talent and songs.
My father had a phenomenal knowledge of music; my mom's family were all musicians.
I was living and working with adult men who were playing a real art form. And I had been playing blues all my life. As soon as I formed my first band, we played Jimmy Reed stuff. So it wasn't like I was a white kid who was learning the blues from B.B. King records.
We are living in a country that has taken the short view on everything. We have sold our future.
I wake up every day excited to play.
Looking at Capitol's performance over a 22-year period, I figure they were focused three years out of the 22 I worked for them.
I like hooks and choruses, things people can sing to.
I was exposed to jazz and blues and gospel and country music and rock, and I was the only kid I knew who knew about that stuff.
My plan is to keep playing until I fall over.
I think the audiences abroad are older and come from a more mature society. They have a different understanding of whats happening as art.
Growing up, I was always around adult musicians who played for their entire lives. So that's what I wanted to do, and I always had that in mind.
I really enjoy working with luthiers, and have a couple of really old Les Pauls and one of my original Strats that I still carry on the road.
I've always enjoyed Cheap Trick.
The people at Jazz at Lincoln Center are an amazing group and have done a phenomenal job teaching kids and audiences of all ages about jazz.
My roots are in everything from doo-wop and blues to the Four Freshman and the Beach Boys and jazz and electronica. But it was put together in a deceptively simple package.
I love the sound of vinyl best. My sweetheart and I love to put on a vinyl record, it feels and sounds so much better.
You have to know what your value is. I started learning my value when I was 12 years old.
By 1949 I knew all the studio tricks.
I was born to be a musician.
We sold 1.5 million copies of the 'Abracadabra' album and 26,000 copies of 'Italian X-Rays.'
Generally what you see happen is these talented kids make a great album, but they don't have a chance unless they have someone working with them who has integrity. They get thrown out by MTV and radio in six weeks, and they don't get any time to grow.
Each time I hit the road to gig, it still feels like I'm going to summer camp.
For the longest time, I was uninterested in dealing with EMI Records.
The record business has been so unpleasant and so bad for so long.
When I was a kid this is what I was listening to on my car radio - Lowell Fulsom singing 'Tramp.'
Journey was a jazzy jam band when they first started. They were very out there.
Our real business is the people who come to see us play and want to hear us play, so I have a very active career.
There aren't that many people that cover my music. It's kind of hard to cover. Everybody always has their own spin. The only guy who didn't, I think, was Seal. It just sounded like a bad version of 'Fly Like an Eagle.'
I kind of enjoyed having people complain that I wasn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame more than I think I'll like being in it.
Right before I moved out to San Francisco, I played in Buddy Guy's band.
Blues is one of the most important art forms. It's an amazing music, and we don't want to lose it.
