J. J. Cale Quotes

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best J. J. Cale Quotes. The wide variety of quotes available makes it possible to find a quote to suit your needs. You’ve likely heard some of the J. J. Cale Quotes before, but that’s because they truly are great.

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

My music’s gotten much more famous than me.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

I’ve never sold a lot of records.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

You never know how people are going to find songs for their records. Sometimes people will hear songs on someone else‘s record and really like ’em.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

I love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.

J. J. Cale

A lot of people are coming down on people taking old rock ‘n’ roll songs and making commercials out of them, but from a songwriter’s standpoint, I don’t mind because it helps pay my rent.

J. J. Cale

I just play my guitar and push my songs and I’d like to keep it quiet.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

I wanted to be able to play music, and then when I went out in my private life, my personal life, I didn’t want to be famous.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

You know, I write songs, I repair guitars.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

Send me the money and let the younger guys have the fame.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

I’ve always enjoyed being a Gypsy.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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.’

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

I’m not a household name.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

No. 1, I’m a songwriter, and I don’t really get out and tour.

J. J. Cale

I’ve always tried to come up with something that would catch your ear.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

I make my living writing songs and, you know, I’m not a show biz kind of guy.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

I’m an electronic manipulator. Most people think J.J. Cale, he’s organic. There ain’t nothing organic about me.

J. J. Cale

I stopped a lot of people who wanted to shove me into the real big time. Your ego wants to say, ‘Hey, I’m somebody, man,’ but I knew there were many days when I just wanted to be John Cale.

J. J. Cale

I was an engineer for a long time. I was a sideman guitar player.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

I’m a great believer in freedom of speech.

J. J. Cale

On the ‘Escondido’ album, I think it took us a month to make that album.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

Probably the only thing that I really don’t like about being an old guy is so many of the people who understand what we know are gone.

J. J. Cale

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.

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

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

J. J. Cale

I ain’t got much to say.

J. J. Cale

I was a studio engineer out in L.A. for about six or seven years, and I played sideman for different people, and played in bar bands. I was an old man of 32 when I made my first album.

J. J. Cale

J. J. Cale Quotes

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