Ry Cooder Quotes

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Ry Cooder

Profession : Musician

Birth : March 15, 1947

I've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

It's tremendously expensive to make a record on the basis of writing checks.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

Film work is a job I like to do because I really love to solve problems.

Ry Cooder

American global economic imperialism is a fact. It's a known fact. It's a simple fact.

Ry Cooder

I'm a man of peace.

Ry Cooder

You can play as good as you want, but you have to sing from a place of living.

Ry Cooder

With country, it's hard to penetrate the thick layers of commercialism that have been applied like shellac coatings over the real thing.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

Travelling is hard. I'm no traveller. I hate flying, and I hate hotels.

Ry Cooder

After all is said and done and institutions fail, people still have some ability to care for each other.

Ry Cooder

Politics runs on power and money and on ignorance.

Ry Cooder

Music creates complicity, and then you feel less isolated.

Ry Cooder

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?'

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

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!

Ry Cooder

The Woody Guthrie 'Dust Bowl' tunes were really fascinating.

Ry Cooder