Top 55 J. J. Cale Quotes

I’m not a household name.

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

I try and manufacture recordings to sound spontaneous. Then, some things are spontaneous.

From the first album I’m playing bass on a lot of the tunes, and piano on a lot of ’em, and drums, and guitars. I did that on almost every album.

Oh, I’m not a very good singer, and that’s ’cause I was always embarrassed about my singing.

I’m basically a songwriter, man. Songwriters are down in the fine print, you know? And I really enjoy that.

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

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

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

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.

I’m a background person.

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

I rarely have any contact with the artists who cover my songs.

Yeah, Lynyrd Skynyrd, I knew all them guys.

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

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.’

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

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

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

The music is the same if you go all the way back to the first albums I made or the middle or whatever. The thing that’s different is the lyrics.

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

I was a late bloomer in the music business.

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.

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

I’m so old, I can remember before rock ‘n’ roll come along.

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

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

I love the rabbits and the squirrels and the birds.

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.

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

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.

My music’s gotten much more famous than me.

I sure love to write songs, but I’m not so sure of my voice.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Ask any guitar player – it’s hard to feed yourself when you’re picking for a living.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve always enjoyed being a Gypsy.