Ry Cooder

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.

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

I'm not interested in making folkloric records, but I like to push the traditional format around so that familiar patterns get knocked on the head.

The blues is so expressive - nostalgic but not sentimental, mournful but not pathetic, so humble and close to the earth. It's a nuance-filled thing.

What kills music in films is when it's done as performance, drawing attention to the fact that someone's in the background playing it.

I toured around for years, but the road was always a drag for me. I never made a dime. In fact, I lost a lot of money - it was horrible.

It all started back in '69 when I worked with Jack Nitzche on 'Performance.' That was my first experience of doing soundtracks, and I've enjoyed doing them ever since.

Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten.

If something grooves and you like the sound, then that's all you need.

When the real world intrudes on your musical fantasies, I get put out.

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

People have all sorts of expectations which you can't meet. Me, I'm so reclusive I stay away from such things as much as I can. I never go anywhere.

Chavez Ravine is the dawn of Chicano consciousness.

If every song is in the past tense, that's a drag, so you have to predict the future.

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

'Buena Vista Social Club' is a great song and a difficult tune to play.

I think all the music I do, which ties together, as far as I'm concerned, is fun and entertaining.

Musicians understand each other through means other that speaking.

Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can't stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That's true on record and on stage.

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.