Quotes from Ry Cooder

I give up on pop music. As far as a commercial entity, as far as pop music goes, I quit; I absolutely throw in the towel. I can't handle it. I can't do it. I can't be what they need you to be.

I got a reputation for being 'eclectic' or some damn thing like that, but to me, the different kinds of music I play are all the same stuff - good time music - and it is the only stuff I can do.

The Delmore Brothers is hit music - very, very popular - and it still retains that rural flavor and simplicity. I always think of it as family music, really, because families sang it.

After all is said and done and institutions fail, people still have some ability to care for each other.

Everyone thought my first album would be instrumental, but I didn't want to do it - it took me eight months to make.

It's good to see more young people playing instruments.

To me, the Internet is a big scam.

I like the idea that something happens to everybody who comes to L.A. - whether they are Mexican, Irish, black, or hillbillies. You come here, and you leave all your traditions behind. And since there's no traditions here, you just make one up.

I went on tour with Ricky Skaggs and his wife, Sharon White, and the White Family in 2015. It was fantastic. They're all the greatest singers of that country stuff, traditional country up into bluegrass.

You go through these phases. That's how life is. Over the long term, you just can't do one thing. I saw that back in the Sixties when I was getting started.

Music creates complicity, and then you feel less isolated.

Travelling is hard. I'm no traveller. I hate flying, and I hate hotels.

Music is a treasure hunt. You dig and dig, and sometimes you find something.

It's tremendously expensive to make a record on the basis of writing checks.

I didn't come from a very rigid background, where there's a clan or a tribe or a religion.

I always thought East L.A. music was so dreamy and languid and kinda greasy.

Film work is a job I like to do because I really love to solve problems.

I've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.

I had a lot of luck in meeting great musicians who were kind enough to show me things.

Beautiful tunes are all very good and fine, and great musicians are always great, but that alone isn't enough. Most folks, when they see movies or hear records, need something that they find pulls them in, draws them in, and appeals to them beyond just the notes.

I didn't want tunes that preach heaven: you know, life on Earth is bad and heaven is the only hope we have. I don't quite care for that. I mean, when people sing that stuff, it's good when they do it, but I didn't want to do it.

I used to sneak gospel tunes into my old records, just as kind of a personal thing.

I like classical music. I especially like the French composers: Ravel in particular. Debussy. That's so soothing in a nervous world.

The biggest inspiration I had was to take norteno soul music and fuse it with Mexican music. It was my great big idea to do that.