Alan Arkin Quotes

The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.

Actually, I'm the Scottish Woody Guthrie.

I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.

I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Guthrie song.

When you get to readin' about where the music and John Steinbeck and all those people like that come from, the further you go the more interesting it becomes.

Most boys' first hero is their father. That was definitely true of my dad. He was a proud Irish American and he taught me a lot about ethics and responsibility. He also introduced me to a lot of wonderful folk music.

The first music I was ever exposed to was Irish folk music, like the Clancy Brothers. My father plays that and Christmas songs.

Americana Music is about all sorts of different music. It's very free and open: a world where people just like authentic music.

My musical heroes are people like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie who wrote and sang real songs for real people; for everyone, old, young, and in between.

Mine is not a traditional music, but it comes from a tradition.

I came along and was a teenager in the Depression, and nobody had jobs. So I went out hitchhiking, when I met a man named Woody Guthrie. He was the single biggest part of my education.

The Woody Guthrie 'Dust Bowl' tunes were really fascinating.

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

Any nobody from the folk blues world could avoid being influenced by Woody Guthrie, who is actually of Scottish-Irish ancestry.

I absorbed the vinyl of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Jack Elliott, to Michael McClure and then into the Beat poets, Allen Ginsberg. At campus, we were absorbing that stuff. We looked to America.

My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles - I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.

I've always been interested in any kind of great music, and African music is, I think, the source of it all.

I used to be fast and loose with the term 'country' because I didn't know what else to call my music. I still don't.

I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center. I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.

I grew up across the street from, you know, the Villarias, which was a great Mexican family there. In fact, there was three houses right across the street from me. So, day and night, I listened to Mexican music, and I'm sure, you know, my guitar playing, singing, writing, whatever, has a lot of Mexican flavor there, but it comes natural.

I felt I had an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of great soul musicians of the past, who made a lot of social and political commentary through their music.

At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.

Country music historically has been sort of middle-aged people's music.

When Merle and I started out we called our music 'traditional plus,' meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play.

For me, the great thing about music is that anybody can do it.