There’s a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.
Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, ‘Oh man, this is the stuff.’ It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling.
If You’re going to sweep the floor, sweep it better than anybody in town. And if You’re going to play the guitar, really, really, really get in it, and don’t be jivin’.
I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It’s not like I’m cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.
I would invite all Latin people to do nothing for about two weeks so you can see who really, really is running the economy I am here to give voice to the invisible.
Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.
I know I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna wind up a walking jukebox, like many rock ‘n’ roll artists. They just play their hits and that’s it. That doesn’t appeal to me.
I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.
