Right now, I'm thinking in terms of just having a good band, man. Having a good act for the stage. Being a good performer, you know? Connected to that is future recordings, and future tunes, that kind of stuff.
I didn't make my first solo record until 1981 so I don't have any 60's or 70's recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year, the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.
The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.
There are a bunch of songs that I think are beautiful recordings, and I'm proud of them, but I've no interest in listening to them.
The sound has grown and sweetened over the years as well, and you can hear it on many of my recordings and, most likely, will see and hear me playing it if you come to a live show.
I got more used to my own voice, but still it's hard for me to listen to my own voice, or hear the recordings.
I think recordings have been a terrific advance because now, when you have a piece of music, particularly something that appears to the listener very complicated, there's really a push to the world to try to figure out what it was that he was hearing.
At the Isle of Wight, the sound went out and kind of kept on going. And I wasn't... when I came off stage I was kind of unhappy about how we had played. But now, I listen back to those recordings and it's not bad.
The government paid the family of Richard Nixon $18 million for papers, tape recordings and other materials seized after Watergate.
I like to stay home and listen to recordings.
I don't believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that's dishonest. For example, I'm not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don't, what you hear is pretty much what I sing.
Throughout the '50s, tons of unknown locals came through Sun to record their demos. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis all made their first recordings at the former Memphis Recording Service.
I would have loved to record with Paul McCartney on some of his early solo recordings, wonderful music. Playing some lovely organ, perhaps. I would have loved to record with John Lennon. He was a dear friend. I had lunch with him just two days before he died.
Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.
I realized I liked being in the studio and working on translating the ideas into recordings.
It's people, not possessions, that make home for me. It's not that I get much time to entertain, or any of that, what with the television production schedule and, now, singing concerts all around the country and making recordings.
I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn't want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. 'Discreet Music' was like that, and 'Music for Airports.' What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.
The White House tapes, the recordings that Nixon made of his conversations in office, have long been recognized as a marvel of verbal incontinence.
I love the sound of '70s glam records. I love that snare sound. The recordings I like, it's all based on if the snare sounds good. The drums have to sound great.
When digital technology started becoming the norm, you've got 50, 60, 70 years of recordings on tapes that are just deteriorating. Like, a two-inch reel of recording tape won't last forever. It dissolves. It will disappear.
It was step by step that I earned my way into the lives and hearts of people by giving them recordings that I grew to love and as I found my listening audience also grew to love.
I used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M.
