Leon Russell Quotes
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My first job in a country band was after I moved to California.
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Actually, I didn't listen to country music very much in Oklahoma. I listened to blues and rock n' roll.
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I used to write on pads with a pen but had trouble reading the words the next day. Years later, Bob Dylan taught me to just write and write on a laptop computer. Then I'd print that out. When it was time to write a song, I'd go through the pages and sing melodies to words that moved me.
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I'll work as long as I can. I'm happy with my life.
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I am happy with what comes, I don't have expectations of any stature.
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I've grown up on Bob Dylan and all that, but there was a certain standard set up by people before 1955.
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I like that old style of country music - it seems to me that a lot of the modern country music is rehashed rock n' roll.
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I've avoided the press and a lot of stuff that would have made me more visible just because it's not my style.
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I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.
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I had a band with David Gates. There was just a lot of opportunity at that time. But I left for Los Angeles the week after I graduated high school, and I actually left to try to get into the advertising business. That was really why I went out to L.A. My music career was almost an accident.
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I didn't start out to become famous, so when it disappeared, I thought, well, that happens sometimes.
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Words have been the most difficult thing for me. Melodies have been the easiest for me; I have more than enough melodies to go around.
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It's kind of depressing to make a lot of records and not get the kind of response they deserve.
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If everybody'd agree to quit using money, I'd be happy to play for free every day for awhile. But I don't play benefits or any kind of fund-raisers. I prefer to play at hospitals, for people who otherwise can't see us. But I can't see playing for causes, whatever the cause may be.
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Karen Carpenter was just a singularly amazing singer. There was just not anybody like her.
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Both economics and politics are false sciences.
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There was a period in my life when I was trying to write standards: songs that everybody recorded. I did a pretty good run of it.
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I had a whole bunch of bad country songs, so I put 'em all on an album.
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I'm almost totally politically inactive.
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I'm pretty serious about what I do.
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The doctor who pulled me out at birth damaged my second and third vertebrae. But without those tugs, I probably would have been a regular guy selling insurance in Texas or something.
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When you play with another piano player, it's just second nature to play the parts that need to be played.
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When I was in grade school, I had a little duet act with a guy who was a beautiful singer, and somebody recorded it on a wire machine. They played it back for us, and I went, 'I hear Donald, but what is that other ugly voice?' It turned out to be me, of course.
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My whole family's been involved with music, and it's been so since the minstrel days.