Ry Cooder Quotes

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Ry Cooder

Profession : Musician

Birth : March 15, 1947

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.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

I think all the music I do, which ties together, as far as I'm concerned, is fun and entertaining.

Ry Cooder

Being the front guy is a hard job.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

People respond to any good you can do in music.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder

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.

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.

Ry Cooder

Some people have career plans, long-range career plans. I don't know anything about that. I'm no good at it.

Ry Cooder

I always like spoken word records.

Ry Cooder

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

'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.

Ry Cooder

I'm sort of an osmotic fellow.

Ry Cooder

I don't understand the public, but I do believe the public is oversold and underrated every day. Give the people something interesting, something to chew on, I say.

Ry Cooder

I keep my mind on track, and I don't get mad, and I don't get frustrated. Well, I do... but creative work, it's a way of controlling all that.

Ry Cooder

I'm a great lover of ballads.

Ry Cooder

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.

Ry Cooder