Words matter. These are the best Jon Landau Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Joni Mitchell seems destined to remain in a state of permanent dissatisfaction – always knowing what she would like to do, always more depressed when it’s done.
Elton John himself never seems pretentious but Bernie Taupin’s lyrics often do – sometimes pretentious in a clever sort of way, but pretentious nonetheless. There is a conflict between Elton’s and Bernie’s personal styles, no doubt about it.
The Rolling Stones are constantly changing, but beneath the changes they remain the most formal of rock bands. Their successive releases have been continuous extensions of their approach, not radical redefinitions, as has so often been the case with the Beatles.
On first listening, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Court And Spark,’ the first truly great pop album of 1974, sounds surprisingly light; by the third or fourth listening, it reveals its underlying tensions.
The early Bob Dylan was compulsively drawn to the conflict between stability and the search for immortality.
Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler believes first-rate records are made by first-rate voices. He certainly has worked with enough of them: Clyde McPhatter, Joe Turner, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
‘Call Me’ is not an exceptional Al Green album, but it is as solid as a rock at its center.
The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock; they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock.
Since her landmark ‘Tapestry,’ Carole King has both oversimplified and over elaborated that masterful album’s style until her music has become something more overtly but less effectively personal.
James Taylor is the kind of person I always thought the word ‘folksinger’ referred to. He writes and sings songs that are reflections of his own life, and performs in them in his own style. All of his performances are marked by an eloquent simplicity.
In the end, the sign of Aretha Franklin’s artistry is that she always leaves her mark – first, on the music, then on us.
One gets the impression that Elvis Presley does what his business advisors think will be most profitable. My advice to them: Put Elvis Presley in the studio with a bunch of good, contemporary rockers, lock the studio up, and tell him he can’t come out until he’s done made an album that rocks from beginning to end.
The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches.
The Who, England’s most self-conscious band, have released ‘Quadrophenia,’ which in turn freezes in time our image of the mid-Sixties Mod sensibility.
As long as Elton John can bring forth one performance per album on the order of ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight,’ the chance remains that he will become something more than the great entertainer he already is and go on to make a lasting contribution to rock.
Ringo Starr may not have much of a voice, but when he sang a song on a Beatle album, it had its own special charm.
‘Sing It Again Rod’ touches all the solo bases since Stewart’s departure from the Jeff Beck Band, wherein he cut his teeth on American audiences for $75 a week plus expenses, and wisely ignores his generally inferior work with the Faces.
My ambition was to be a record producer, and I had started doing that in the late ’60s with my work with the MC5 and my friend Livingston Taylor.
It didn’t matter that Charlie Chaplin may not have been a great director or a great anything else. He made great movies.
The Beatles did their best cover work on Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ and music influenced by Richard, such as Larry Williams’s ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie.’
Part of me believes that the completed record is the final measure of a pop musician’s accomplishment, just as the completed film is the final measure of a film artist’s accomplishments.
‘Band on the Run’ is a carefully composed, intricately designed personal statement that will make it impossible for anyone to classify Paul McCartney as a mere stylist again.
Barry White seemed so filled with self-parody at first that it was easy to dismiss him. But it is becoming increasingly obvious with every additional release that he is a very talented man.
‘Let’s Get It On’ is a classic Motown single, endlessly repeatable and always enjoyable.
To her audience, Janis Joplin has remained a symbol, artifact and reminder of late Sixties youth culture. Her popularity never derived from her musical ability, but from her capacity to link her fantasies of freedom and immortality with ours.
