Ethan Coen Quotes

I sang in the coffee houses . . . in the early 60's with no idea of success in terms of records or television. I just thought I was a storyteller. I had this deep, bassy voice. But I had incredible passion for the music I was singing.

The models for me were more the folk-rock singers of the '60s and '70s.

I was never really a bone fide member of the folk scene.

I knew Bobby Dylan back in the days when he lived in the village. He used to come and see me and sing songs for me, saying they ought to go into my next collected book on American folk music.

Bob Dylan's first couple of records in the 60's weren't considered cover records, but he only wrote one or two original songs on each album.

The big turning point, really, was the Beatles' influence on American folk music, and then Roger took it to the next step, and then along came the Lovin' Spoonful and everybody else.

Judy Garland, Doris Day, and Gene Kelly were all big influences growing up from all of the films. I'm also a huge folk music fan - Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan have influenced a lot of how music can inspire change in our world.

When I first moved to London, there was talk of a folk revival, with annoying names like nu-folk that made me feel slightly ill.

I'm a big Bob Dylan fan. I'm also a blues geek.

I took the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face from a folk singer called Bonnie Dobson. I knew her and she had a record with that track on it.

When I first knew Bob Dylan, he lived in the Village. And for a man who, years after, would disdain publicity or any attempts at interviews, whenever I'd write something about him, he'd be on the street corner saying, 'When's it going to run? When's it going to run?' But I must say that album that was - it was the second album he did, and though I've never been a fan of his guitar-playing, he did - I have to admit, he did catch the Zeitgeist of the time.

If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease.

[Bob] Dylan began to incorporate things into that scene that were controversial then. He got shouted at in Newport when he played electric guitar, for instance. There was a certain purity that was sought among those people.

I grew up playing guitar in the late Nineties, early 2000s, so a very acoustic-driven pop-rock era, and then in college, I started listening to Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves. Then I really fell in love when I discovered really old country, like June Carter Cash - one of my all-time favorites.

Diane Cluck is part of the anti-folk movement in New York. She's got a really haunting voice, and she usually sings in the pentatonic scale.

I've grown up on American songwriters my whole life - listening to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and people like John Prine - you know, classic, real songwriters. They've been the lion's share of what I've really focused on as a writer and as influences, too.

Bob Dylan - I will listen to any of his songs over and over.

I grew up on, and kind of came of age, during the grunge movement and was introduced to Neil Young and Bob Dylan and grew up on that path.

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They're my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He's just really cool.

Most people think that I heard Bob Dylan first and got a cap and harmonica. Really, it was Woody Guthrie. He was so influential.

Actually, I'm the Scottish Woody Guthrie.

Anne Briggs is great, and I love Sandy Denny and Steeleye Span.

I've grown up on Bob Dylan and all that, but there was a certain standard set up by people before 1955.

When I discovered Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I could explore the records that inspired me on a different level and that led me to Joni Mitchell, who is maybe my favorite of all time, and Warren Zevon. Those artists that wrote the lyrics that you try for.

If they made a movie about Bob Dylan, I would love to play a young Bob Dylan; I mean, I've got the wild hair.