Jose Feliciano Quotes

Jose Feliciano

Profession : Musician

Birth : September 10, 1945

I didn't write Feliz Navidad to make a lot of money for me.

Jose Feliciano

I taught myself until I was about 16. And then I studied classical guitar with some teachers.

Jose Feliciano

I was a teen idol in Latin America.

Jose Feliciano

I've been playing in Israel since 1971.

Jose Feliciano

The only thing I can say to the people of Israel is that I love them and I am a strong ally.

Jose Feliciano

New York will always be a part of me no matter where I go.

Jose Feliciano

I never expected to have such a long career, it's been 52 years.

Jose Feliciano

I'm Puerto Rican, but I represent everybody.

Jose Feliciano

Everyone is my equal, and that is transferred to my music.

Jose Feliciano

I have very heightened senses - not just my hearing but my sense of smell.

Jose Feliciano

I think sighted people let their eyes cheat them out of certain things. People who can see don't have a great sense of smell because they don't use it.

Jose Feliciano

I think I am different from most blind people because my agility is not that of a blind person - I don't shuffle my feet when I walk. In fact, I have no, as I call them, 'blindisms.'

Jose Feliciano

I got so big in the Latin market, it was a bit like being Elvis Presley. The limousines, the screaming girls - stuff I wasn't used to.

Jose Feliciano

God did not want me to be a blind beggar on the street, alone and bitter. He gave me music, first to be my companion and then to be my salvation.

Jose Feliciano

I was growing up at a time when music was growing and changing so fast. I had learned all the big band sounds of the 1940s, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey. But then along came Chuck Berry, Les Paul, Fats Domino and I figured out how to make their music as well.

Jose Feliciano

In 1970, my label decided I should do a Christmas album and I put a bunch of tunes together. We couldn't decide what to call it and so I said 'Why not just say Merry Christmas in Spanish? Feliz Navidad.' They said, 'That's cool, Jose, but we need a title song.' So I just sat down and started to play.

Jose Feliciano

Music. It has always showed me that I could do what the other kids couldn't do. So I will keep playing and singing and entertaining, as long as the good Lord lets me. That is my life.

Jose Feliciano

When I was a kid, I could make music out of anything, whether it be a rubber band, a tin can. Whatever it was I made music out of it and so that was my knack.

Jose Feliciano

There were screaming girls, I had to learn as a blind person how to run to a limousine otherwise they'd take my clothes off and stuff. I thought to myself 'how could this happen?' I mean I could see it, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, but Jose Feliciano? It was a mystery to me.

Jose Feliciano