I would just listen to records and learn what I could, then just roll it over and over and over.
I grew up with vinyl records and remember the pleasure and the kind of buzz that I got from buying a beautiful vinyl record with the sleeve and the lyrics – all that kind of tactile experience that you could get from an old vinyl record.
I don’t want to live on past records.
Formats are constantly changing, and there are really no rules for the way you put your records out anymore.
I really didn’t like ‘Done With Mirrors.’ I really didn’t like ‘Just Push Play.’ Then there are other records I really think were good for their time, like ‘Toys and Rocks.’
I try and make little stories. Whether it’s with a pencil or with bits of records, it’s really the same thing.
Growing up, I listened to a lot of jazz and blues records – John Coltrane and Etta James. I was also really into Radiohead and the BeeGees.
It was kind of easier for me to do records that didn’t take a year or two years of my life to write and to make.
Growing up, we had folk records.
Obviously, there are moments that you look back at and cringe – things in the past involving violence or disrespect to women or disrespect to other people that are so far away from what I want to put out there now. But it’s actually a privilege to be able to change and be making records that reflect that change.
In 20 years I had sold more records for RCA than any artist except Elvis Presley.
Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.
When no one’s buying your records, it’s easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can’t really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.
Situation comedy on television has thrived for years on ‘canned’ laughter, grafted by gaglines by technicians using records of guffawing audiences that have been dead for years.
The films that I really liked and the ones that really blew my mind when I was younger were independent films. They’re like great records to me.
People get passionate about a song. It’s been my experience if you put out radio candy, something commercial, it doesn’t sell records.
Al and Tommy and I sharing the biggest laugh because it was predicted by everything we did in the first three or four records in my career. It was predicted in the grooves that we would be here sometime later on down the road.
I hope our hopes and aspirations are bigger than setting records.
I never really think so much about commercial success; I usually just think about records that move me, and ‘Baby Got Back’ was one that moved me.
You know you’re a hopeless record nerd when your time travel fantasies always come around to how cool it would be to go back to 1973 and buy all the great funk and jazz and salsa records that came out that year on tiny obscure labels and are now really rare and expensive.
When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.
I’m always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.
Virgin Records will probably release their own package sometime next year.
The bands that have been the most important to me, and the records that have been the most important to me as a fan, have been records that surprised me for one reason or another.
When I started recording, I thought I’d be able to do all kinds of records: jazz, country, dance – and I’ve always wanted to do a gospel album.
I have lots of records, quite a collection, actually, that I stole from my mom. I have the original ‘Thriller’ album and I have a really great ‘Elton John’s Greatest Hits,’ and I also have a N.E.R.D. album. Records sound more original. They have more edge.
When you’re an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you’re really more focused on yourself. So while everybody’s out touring, I’m working on records.
Finally, my manager negotiated a deal where I got to produce my own records.
Overall, we had about 50 meetings where the brothers would say that I couldn’t do any solo records, I couldn’t write for other people, I couldn’t do this and I couldn’t do that. These guys were trying to nail my feet to the ground.
So people think I’m lying about my age all the time? It’s the records that are wrong. I’ve never told anyone how old I am. The minute they ask me, I say ‘That’s none of your business.’ So that means I’ve never once lied about my age. Now that’s true!
I remember seeing the song in some diners on the selection gadget that plays records at the table while you were eating. We were never told if the songs ever got on any charts.
HAG Records, is a company that I’ve owned. I’ve had a couple of gospel releases on it. We developed a pretty good distribution setup there and we do have something to use in case they don’t want to sign us.
I really just wanted to make something special for women. There aren’t enough records uplifting them out there.
English banjo players really were a law unto themselves – you don’t find that kind of brisk banjo playing on the original Louis Armstrong or Bix Beiderbecke records.
As parents and as consumers, we have the right and the power to pressure the entertainment industry to respond to our needs. Americans, after all, should insist that every corporate giant – whether it produces chemicals or records – accept responsibility for what it produces.
The music industry is saying, This is the format, and if you’ll fit into this format, you can be on radio, and if radio will play you, MTV will expose you, and MTV will expose you, we’ll sell records.
One of my first records that I heard was ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd.
We used to listen to all the marvelous operas on records. Music was a very important part of our lives.
Bands that say they don’t care about how their records sell are liars.
Some people make records that are defined by their sexuality, but mine really are not.
Records don’t have to be perfect. Everyone doesn’t have to move left when everyone else moves left. I love hearing the mistakes.
If you don’t think drugs have done good things for us, then take all of your records, tapes and CD’s and burn them.
The majority see the obstacles; the few see the objectives; history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward of the former.
I was very pleased to find that once I had records out music videos were starting to happen, so I directed some of my own music videos and got to experiment in other areas of expression.
As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.
Sly Stone doesn’t make good albums: only good records. His style is so infinite and revolves around so many crucial aspects that it has only come together perfectly on a handful of his singles.
The two records are very different. I guess, on the second record, that’s more where I was at. Its not that I’m more well-adjusted or anything, it’s just that what I wanted to sing about maybe was more the way I wanted to feel.
Oh, I will always be honest with my music. The records are black boxes for me. Like if you want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my anthems. I’ve never let people’s opinions affect the way I write.
People weren’t buying as many records. My record company did not want me. I went through three record companies, went on tour at the wrong time. It destroyed me.
There’s a certain urgency that comes from the records of the early 60s before overdubbing and multitracking came into play.
I still look good. I’m trippin’, but people tell me that all the time. So check it out, I’m 63, and still kicking. I’ve been putting records out every year.
And as a nurse, I know very well the importance, for example, of electronic medical records.
It’s one of those records that will stand forever. I really can’t imagine anyone touching it.
We went into that knowing that we were never going to sell a major record ’cause we didn’t sound like these bands, so I just thought this was an opportunity for us to make the kind of records that we wanted and make some money at the same time.
My influences were the riff-based blues coming from Chicago in the Fifties – Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Billy Boy Arnold records.
Remember the Stax label and how if you liked one record, you liked all the others as well? You don’t talk to a lot of people who tell you how much they love their record label. I don’t care how many records they sell.
I feel like I’d like to continue putting out records and start putting them out more rapidly than I have until now and for me if I can keep selling the records to the fans that already like me that’s fine.
I want to make 20, 30, 50 studio records.
I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn’t have anyone else to blame.
