Admiration Quotes

He [Bo Diddley] was a wonderful, original musician who was an enormous force in music and was a big influence on The Rolling Stones. He was very generous to us in our early years and we learned a lot from him. We will never see his like again.

No one, but no one, is equal, or ever will be. Elvis was and is supreme.

I think everything Joni Mitchell did for music was big.

I have a couple of all-time favorites: Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

I'm making music for other people to listen to for pleasure. And hopefully, later on maybe they'll listen to it and go, "That bass line, boy, did you hear the way those drums interacted with that?"

I had a year-round Christmas tree with nothing but colored vinyl 45s hanging on it, like, old Elvis records and stuff.

I always knew Gordon Lightfoot was a really great songwriter, but his stuff even sounds better and better all the time. It's just so really good to me. It's just like that's what should be in a dictionary, you know, next to a really good contempory folk song, is a Gordon Lightfoot song.

You can fool some of the people part of the time in a rock and roll song, fifty million Elvis Presley fans can't be all wrong.

The Ways of a Woman in Love' is one of my very favorite early Johnny Cash songs. I like the way the lyric talks about the character walking by the girl's house and wishing he was the one in her arms.

I used to read a lot of Steinbeck, and I admired Roger Miller and Bob Dylan.

Johnny Cash was like Abraham Lincoln to me.

Howie Epstein was a kind, patient, and extremely talented musician. He took two years out of his life and dedicated his undivided attention to the making of two of my records. Those records changed my life thanks to Howie.

All the girls over there in Ireland are well versed in American country music. Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline are like king and queen over there.

Man, it was a great place then. I love going back to Chicago. Man, it was a good amount of fortune. That Steve and I came along when we did, and got into the Chicago folk scene. It was kind of all ready for us.

I listen to anything anyone gives me. I always go back to a few basic favorites. I can always listen to Django Reinhardt and hear something I haven't heard before. I like to listen to Art Tatum and Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Those are guys who never seem to run out of ideas.

See, there's only two theaters, man that are set up pretty groovy all around for music and for smooth stage changes, good lighting and all that - the Fillmore and The Capitol Theatre. And those are the only two in the whole country.

Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin. Now, they are so subtle, they can milk you with two notes. They can make you feel like they told you the whole universe. But I don't know that yet. All I got now is strength. Maybe if I keep singing, maybe I'll get it.

I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master.

I especially love the pump organ on "Walkin' on the Road (to the Future)" and "The Wonder Won't Wait"-it adds this wheezing, groaning sound. It's almost as though another person, another set of lungs, is suddenly in the room.

I play the songs, and we're doing it live, and everything happens, and then we capture it like that. Rick is a genius. It's so easy, because he loves music. You're not gonna find a person who loves music more than Rick. He's dedicated to preserving it.