Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Working on 'The Last Waltz' introduced me to Martin Scorsese, and I had been a movie bug since I was a young kid.
The native music of North America, the original-roots music of this country, is also the underworld music of this country.
I asked Bob Dylan to paint the album cover for 'Music from Big Pink.' He said, 'Yeah, let me see what I can come up with.'
I feel so lucky to have been in a group where it was a real band. This wasn't a singer and guitar player and some other guys.
My mother was a Mohawk, born and raised on a reservation, and when I was a kid, she would take me there to visit her relatives.
I never really had a teenage experience. I went from childhood to maturity, and in some ways, it short-circuited me emotionally.
making a noise in this world making a noise in this world you can bet your ass, I won't go quietly making a noise in this world.
I love the idea of having a kid who says, 'Yeah, of course I knew about Billie Holiday and Johnny Cash when I was nine years old.'
After the 'Last Waltz' concert, it just seemed very healthy to me to put making a record as far out of my mind as I possibly could.
Confused by the big city blues, he didn't know who's life he's leading. Put yourself behind the wheel, see if you can get that feel.
When I was younger, I thought I was too young to really be personal. I thought that what I was feeling and thinking might be half-baked.
When you make a record, your own record, and you don't even recognize it yourself, it's hard to think if anybody else is going to recognize.
Think about the number of people who do film music, make records and have a Native American heritage - and I may be the only one on the list.
There's a thing that has happened in the U.S. where the spirit has been beaten so badly and so you feel no unity in the voice of the country.
The Beatles tried to do some tours and found it to be completely pointless and became a non-touring band after that, and with very good reason.
Once you establish a foundation of knowing what the greatest recording artists of all time were Wouldn't you want your kids to know this stuff?
A lot of people from my generation can't write songs anymore, or it's really hard and it's an unpleasant experience. I don't feel that way at all.
Once you establish a foundation of knowing what the greatest recording artists of all time were... Wouldn't you want your kids to know this stuff?
I was a storyteller for The Band. It was never, 'Hey guys, here's a song about what happened to me.' I was always more comfortable writing fiction.
I come from a family who prided themselves, both sides, on memory. And I was told growing up, constantly, that I was born with a really good memory.
Some music is supposed to be disposable; that's OK. A lot of music is fun for today, but it isn't supposed to be timeless; it's supposed to be trendy.
The direction is going the right way for respect for aboriginal people in North America, and all we can do is stand up and say, 'Please do it faster.'
The rock concert experience for people was really pretty stupid, you know, at the time. People would go to concerts not with the idea of listening at all.
There's a bookstore in New York where you could buy scripts, and I got addicted to them because they were easy, quick reads and the pictures were so vivid.
When you look at that period when Warhol and the Velvets and the Stones were doing things, it was this intersection of art and music. And then it went away.
People think I left The Band and spoiled this whole thing, and that's not what happened. Nobody broke up The Band. Nobody ever said, 'That's it, we're done.'
There's a bookstore in New York where you could buy scripts, and I got addicted to them because they were easy, quick reads... and the pictures were so vivid.
I've been really fortunate that I've been at a lot of critical crossroads in my musical journey. When I look back, there are some pretty interesting things to look at.
I thought of a lot of people from the same era when I was making a lot of records that had continued making a lot of records. A lot of it didn't seem terribly inspired.
For years after 'The Last Waltz,' I got all kinds of silly movie offers - or, maybe, not silly, but parts that are not my calling lots of offers to play some wonderful boyfriend.
Chuck Berry told me if it wasn't for Louis Jordan, he wouldn't have probably ever even got into music. That Louis Jordan changed everything and made him want to become a musician.
For years after 'The Last Waltz,' I got all kinds of silly movie offers - or, maybe, not silly, but parts that are not my calling... lots of offers to play some wonderful boyfriend.
Most of my younger Native American friends are not in any way looking for sympathy, and they're not looking to lay guilt on anybody. They have their dignity, and they do what they do.
A lot of times when you're making a record, you put your head down and charge forward until you're done. You just hope that the ideas hold up, because you're kind of lost in your own storm.
I'm really lucky because I found myself in a position where I can do whatever I want to do. I can make records, produce records, make movies, or I can do nothing. I'm not a slave to the dollar.
I don't know - it's a bit of a mystery of how things come about when they do. I don't have a scientific explanation for it. Sometimes when you're writing a song, you don't know where you're going.
I've always been in love with that Delta-flavored music the music that came from Mississippi and Memphis and, especially, New Orleans. When I was 14, I was in a wanna-be New Orleans band in Toronto.
When I was 14 years old, I had the opportunity to meet Buddy Holly. I asked him how he got that big, powerful sound out of his guitar amp. He said, 'I blew a speaker and decided not to get it fixed.'
I've always been in love with that Delta-flavored music... the music that came from Mississippi and Memphis and, especially, New Orleans. When I was 14, I was in a wanna-be New Orleans band in Toronto.
My thirst for knowledge and experience comes from the idea that once you learned something, it was time to learn something else. I missed out on a formal educational process, so I'm making up for that.
I always like to keep one hand in the tepee and the other hand in the synagogue. Wouldn't it be great if there was a combination of the two? You could go to synagogue, and it would be really hot in there.
I wanted to develop a guitar style where phrases and lines get there just in the nick of time, like with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. Subtleties mean so much, and there is a stunning beauty in them.
Some bands today have the experience of really working together and honing their craft. And other bands are very much like, 'I just got a guitar for Christmas, let's start a band.' And you can hear the difference.
The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.
My mother told me when I was a toddler and in the crib that they would have music playing, and the thing when I lit up was boogie-woogie or something out of the Louie Jordan period of sometimes big bands, and then all kinds of things.
At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'
At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums... ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'
I play guitar quite a bit, because I'm always in search of something. I don't play to jam, but because I'm fishing. I'm looking for something, that I hope you can never find. If I do find it, I'm afraid I won't have a need to do this any more.
It would be nice to abandon the verse-chorus-bridge structure completely, and make it so none of these things are definable...Make up new names for them. Instead of a bridge, you can call it a highway, or an overpass...Music should never be harmless.
Do you know what a skin walker is? It's a thing in Indian mythology. There are certain people born with this gift, and they're able to actually get inside you and mess with your feelings and with your mind. And if a skin walker chooses to get a hold of you, there's not much you can do.