Hubert Laws

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that’s what I got back to.

Just to keep it interesting I’ll tune the guitar randomly, so I don’t know what’s going to come out.

[Ben Taylor] He is an interesting combination of the two of us. His voice box is more like mine but the way his tongue sits in his mouth, and the way he pronounces words, is just like James Taylor.

When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.

[on B. B. King] Very seldom does he talks about the way he play, man. He always wanna talk about young women. And I fuss at him sometimes, I say, ‘Man I wanna know what did you do here!’

One minute we’re over here, the next minute we’re doing something completely different. But it’s interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn’t do with analog.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.

Keeping your artistic self as creative as possible is a balancing act.

Indian music is very soulful and the only other school that develops improv to the high degree you find in Jazz.

Musicians have the intimacy of bringing two people together and the aesthetic, romantic transference.

I’m trying to get people to see that we are our brother’s keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

I asked my mother could I have an instrument. She said, ‘Well if you go out and save your money.’ So I went and got – I made me a shine box. I went out and started shining shoes, and I’d bring whatever I made.

If there is no dance, there is not music.

I can’t understand these guys who just have to have your autograph. I asked one of them ‘What do you do when you get home, take it out and look at it?’

Your sound is you and what you really feel inside.