To me, the Internet is a big scam.
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.
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.
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.
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 something grooves and you like the sound, then that's all you need.
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.
'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.
The '50s was the golden age of music all over the world for some crazy, 'X-File'-like reason I can't quite understand.
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.
Politics runs on power and money and on ignorance.
I hate films. Films make me sick now, and if something makes me sick, I always back off.
I don't like being watched, and I don't like being an entertainer.
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!
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.
Being the front guy is a hard job.
I always think you should push your envelope every chance you get.
I always thought East L.A. music was so dreamy and languid and kinda greasy.
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.
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.
