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.”

“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.”

“The Delmore Brothers is hit music - very, very popular - and it still retains that rural flavor and simplicity. I always think of it as family music, really, because families sang it.”

“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!”

“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.”

“It's crazy to make records nobody buys. It's just a waste of time.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“If you're white working with non-white people, you will be branded as a colonialist by some people, regardless of your efforts or intentions.”

“Promoters don't book you 'cause they like you; they do it 'cause there's good business to be done.”

“I always think you should push your envelope every chance you get.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I got a reputation for being 'eclectic' or some damn thing like that, but to me, the different kinds of music I play are all the same stuff - good time music - and it is the only stuff I can do.”

“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?'”

“Music creates complicity, and then you feel less isolated.”

“The ocean is very comfortable. I could never live inland.”

“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.”

“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.”