Guitar Quotes

It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people.

Being a songwriter, singer, and a great part of a unit is more important than being Joe Guitar Hero.

But the guitar is my favorite, first and foremost instrument.

A lot of the songs are written on piano or guitar, so I contribute, and I have done so since the beginning. So it's been good to be involved completely musically as well.

I get to play a scorching lead guitar, and there's not much that's more fun than that.

I consider myself as a singer first, but something that really helped me come into my own is that there's not a separation between me singing and me playing the guitar. The two fed off the other.

My dad bought me a guitar and people would ask me to play.

I have been playing a lot of keyboards, especially in the last five or six years. I suppose it gives you more scope than the guitar, although it does tend to make you write a different way.

My 10 year old son likes it. He's trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music.

Still others want a traditional guitar sound if they call you for guitar.

I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.

A lot of the songs start with an image. I was sitting there playing the guitar and I pictured this old, dirty green car, with the window rolled down, in the hot, hot, hot Texas heat, and this beautiful woman I knew when I was a kid sitting behind the wheel, looking out at me.

But remember, guitar players are a dime a dozen.

I'm not a really good classical guitarist by any means, but what I learned from this is a way of working very slowly on solo pieces and I enjoyed working on these pieces of John's. They were not written for solo guitar but a lot of them were easy to adapt.

It was 1988, I believe, that I met Grit. We were both appearing in a Canadian Folk Festival and as we sat backstage he handed me his guitar. I played it, loved it, and then found out that he'd made it himself.

I was 12 when I started playing guitar with my brothers.

I'm left handed, but my dad taught me to play guitar right-handed.

I have no guitar technique.

Yes and for two reasons: one, I couldn't find anything to imitate at the time, and secondly because what I heard on the radio didn't bear any resemblance to what I wanted to hear on the guitar.

When we moved back to the US, folk music was all the rage. So I traded in my banjo for a guitar.

It's that kind of in-born music thing - I could pick up the guitar and play something. It's not something I consciously do.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.

I'd like to know how to play the guitar.

But yeah, I played bass guitar in high school and in college and then I actually fractured my thumb, so my bass career went bye-bye.

My father was a guitar player, and I was raised with a super high standard of what good guitar playing was.

Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren't playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I'd still be doing it because that's what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.

To be a great band it's like you have that telepathy. You know when the bass player's in back of you without even looking. You know when your guitar player's coming up to you to lean up to you and sing into your microphone. You just know these things. You feel it. You feel the energy of it.

I play, like, 12 instruments. Guitar, piano, harmonica, African drums... I'm working on mastering the accordion.

The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.