Top 66 J. J. Cale Quotes

Widespread Panic discovered a couple of my songs and started doin’ ’em on the gigs. They’d take a song and expand it and everybody plays a long time and people really like that. But I made my living as a songwriter so I try to get to singin’ and get it over with.

I’m a great believer in freedom of speech.

I remember when I made my first album, I was 32 or 33 years old and I thought I was way too old then.

If a guy came up and said ‘we got a polka band and we’re going to play polkas next Saturday night’ I’d play polkas.

That’s the nice thing about songwriting: You don’t have to punch a clock or be in a specific place to do it. There’s really a lot of freedom to it.

So, my records really didn’t sell, but musicians started picking up on my sound and my songs and cutting my songs and that turned into a gold mine.

Oh, I’m not a very good singer, and that’s ’cause I was always embarrassed about my singing.

I sing and play guitar, but songwriting is how I pay my rent. And so I didn’t really need a lot of publicity to get people to record the songs.

I’d do the blues all the time if I could, that’s what I’m into. But people just don’t like to hear it.

We used to say when we were 20 years old, that when you reach 30, you gotta hang up your guitar and get a real job.

I was mainly a songwriter; I really wasn’t much of a performer.

My performing and my singing leave much to be desired, but having other people record my songs is the most flattering thing that can happen.

Clapton was just picking up ideas. He picked up some of mine like I picked up some from the people before me.

When Eric Clapton cut ‘After Midnight,’ he sold so many records and it was so big at the time, I decided that I would pursue the songwriting thing. I was 34 years old at that time. I’d been down the pike and back before I had any success at all.

I didn’t have a phone there for about 10 years.

I’d like to have the fortune, but I don’t care too much about the fame.

I played a lot of nightclubs in and around Tulsa till I was about 22, 24 years old, then I started travellin’ around.

If I was strictly an artist, I’d have to learn to dance and get a shiny suit and stuff.

I consider myself a songwriter… I guess the business end is my songs and the fun part is playing the guitar.

Nobody really produces my albums.

What’s really nice is when you get a check in the mail.

Sometimes I make up songs, and they’re just strictly fiction. Other times, I draw on things that have happened in my life or friends, women, all sorts of things.

What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.

I think it goes back to me being a recording mixer and engineer. Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound.

All artists are redundant about their own style; they can’t escape themselves.

There are entertainers and there are musicians, and I never was an entertainer.

All my music sounds the same to me.

Songwriting is just like any other kind of writing – it’s either fiction or nonfiction. You can even get into philosophy and politics, which I’ve done on occasion.

There’s a couple of songs of my own I wished I’d have never put out, that, you know, I’d like to burn. But with the advent of digital and computer, nothing goes away any more, you know.

I’m basically a songwriter, man. Songwriters are down in the fine print, you know? And I really enjoy that.

Sometimes the simplest forms of music are the hardest to play. Especially for musicians that are accomplished.

When you get successful, the money comes in and pretty soon you’ve got to hire an accountant, you’ve got to get up early, and then you’ve got a day job.

Playing out in a band all the time at least you made money. Even if you have a hit song, it takes about two years to pay.

I always wrote for musicians, especially guitarists. I write songs that people who aren’t great virtuosos can play.

I’m a recording studio guy, an engineer, a songwriter and a guitar player, in that order.

Yes, I’ve been down the pike and back. And through the years, I’ve heard different songs with scatting in it, and it was – always cracked me up as kind of a funny style of music, you know? When I did it, it kind of cracked me up as a comedy kind of routine.

I’ve never sold a lot of records.

I tried to play anything people would hire me to play, because I was a musician.

That’s one of the problems in being a songwriter and living a long time. What you eventually end up doing is you start imitating yourself.

People have heard my music, but all my famous songs were made famous by somebody else… But that was my goal.

I cut all my early records in Nashville, so I guess that makes me country. I call it country pop, but my love of the blues is in there, too.

Ask any guitar player – it’s hard to feed yourself when you’re picking for a living.

You don’t really need a lot of hype and to be famous to sell songs.

I basically make my living writing songs, so I’ve been able to go around in my trailer. If I got tired of a place, I could move on and roam around. It’s a nice environment for writing songs, as opposed to sitting at a recording studio console all day.

If you write songs long enough, you run out of material that’s original to yourself.

All record companies want big-selling records, and my music is a little too raw for commercial success.

I sure love to write songs, but I’m not so sure of my voice.

As the years went by and technology came in, I used a lot of technology.

I was a late bloomer in the music business.

I’ve always enjoyed being a Gypsy.

That’s kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin’ through.

I’m so old, I can remember before rock ‘n’ roll come along.

Music is a kind of magical thing, and you can’t make magic every time, but you try. Every once in a while it has that magic, and the audience knows that. I probably miss it more than I hit it, but I think that’s what all musicians try for.

People are familiar with my songs, especially through Eric Clapton. But I have a hard time drawing a crowd, because I have been a songwriter.

I try and manufacture recordings to sound spontaneous. Then, some things are spontaneous.

I’m always doing something that ain’t happening, and I’m always happening when there ain’t nothing going on.

Oil was the big business in Tulsa and there was quite a bit of nightlife for a small town. You could never make any money, but you could always find a place to play.

When they say, ‘Well, you gotta do some interviews on TV,’ I went, ‘Oh, I like to watch TV, but I don’t wanna be on it.’

I figure that most people will remember me for the songs I wrote.

When I sit down and play the guitar, I’m 20 years old again.

I’ve always enjoyed playing. If all it meant were to just stand there and play my axe and sing, I could have gone on forever.

I’ve stolen licks from just about every person that ever picked up a guitar. We all borrow from one another; it’s called legitimate stealing.

I generally, you know, I don’t – I don’t really scat. I’m – I’m basically a songwriter so you need a little lyrics that rhyme and stuff.

Everybody lives in a city, cause there’s not too many people in the small towns who can find work.

You know, I write songs, I repair guitars.

I’d say writing songs is, for me, as much playing the tape recorder as it is playing guitar or writing words.