J. J. Cale Quotes

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.’

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Makin’ records is one art form and playin’ live is another. It’s like the difference between makin’ a movie and doin’ theatre.

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

I love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.

I basically make my living writing songs, so I’ve been able to go around in my trailer. If I got tired of a place, I could move on and roam around. It’s a nice environment for writing songs, as opposed to sitting at a recording studio console all day.

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

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

I’ve never sold a lot of records.

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

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

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

I’m a background person.

I’ve always enjoyed being a Gypsy.

I’d like to have the fortune, but I don’t care too much about the fame.

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

I didn’t really get any success till I was 30 years old. I played music when I was young fella, but I didn’t really get any success till I was about 30 years old.

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.

I think it goes back to me being a recording mixer and engineer. Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound.

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.

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

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.

Widespread Panic discovered a couple of my songs and started doin’ ’em on the gigs. They’d take a song and expand it and everybody plays a long time and people really like that. But I made my living as a songwriter so I try to get to singin’ and get it over with.

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.

If you write songs long enough, you run out of material that’s original to yourself.

I was mainly a songwriter; I really wasn’t much of a performer.

I guess if I’d have more of a producer attitude, maybe I’d sell more records. But I’m basically a songwriter.

My music’s gotten much more famous than me.

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

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.

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.

Clapton was just picking up ideas. He picked up some of mine like I picked up some from the people before me.

All my music sounds the same to me.

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

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.

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.

If a guy came up and said ‘we got a polka band and we’re going to play polkas next Saturday night’ I’d play polkas.

Basically, I’m just a guitar player that figured out I wasn’t ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing. So I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.

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.

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

I was kind of a sideman. Then I became kind of a singer-songwriter.

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.

I’ve always enjoyed playing. If all it meant were to just stand there and play my axe and sing, I could have gone on forever.

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.

The only albums that I have personally named were ‘number 5,’ ‘number 8’ and ‘number 10.’