Herb Ellis

I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light. Then I’m grateful.

I try stuff. I synthesize what’s of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.

I’m going to be on the road for the rest of my life.

You could still improvise but do it with lyrics.

The whole concept for the Yeezus album is that we’re not going to be using CDs in the future and since this is the last time we’re going to see it, this is an open casket for the CD.

Les Paul was one of the great innovators of the early electric guitar, and he made some fantastic guitar records. To me, Les Paul is very much it.

Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.

I’ll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I’d never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I’d never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn’t much like it at first.

Whenever I fill out the job description I put ‘songwriter’, never ‘singer’ or ‘artist.’ Singers come and go.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

I grew up with the piano. I learned its language as I learned to speak.

You must surrender whatever preconceptions you have about music if you’re really interested in it.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

T-Bone was, to me, that sound of being in heaven.

It bugs me when people try to analyze Jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not, it’s feeling.