Jerry Garcia Quotes

I mainly use Stratocasters. I like a lot of different kinds of guitars, but for what I do, it seems that a Stratocaster is the most versatile. I can pretty much get any sound out of it, and I use stock pickups.

A Strat was a thing of wonder .. when I was 14 or 15, the Shadows were a big influence, and they had the first Strats that came to England. I like to play all kinds of guitars, but I wasn't getting the sound I really wanted until I got a Stratocaster

I was just a punk kid, trying to get a sound out of a guitar that I couldn't get off the rack, so I built one myself ... I wanted a Gibson type of sound but with a Strat vibrato .. I went to town painting it and I put three pickups back in, but they don't work - only the rear one works

Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock.

I still fall back a lot on my Les Paul, and there is just no getting away from a Les Paul and a hot pickup.

The Telecaster doesn't really sound that good for the kind of rock and roll that a lot of people played.

I couldn't not play a Les Paul guitar. Les always used to point to my Strat and say, 'Why do you have that piece of crap around your neck?' I'd say, 'Yours are too heavy. I had to drill holes in it.'

I have one custom guitar which I play almost exclusively. I have others - sometimes you want a little texture, kind of a different sound or something.

Rock 'n' roll guitar came from blues guitar. It was the blues guys who first turned the amp up and started whacking on the Stratocaster and a Les Paul. It wasn't the country guys and it wasn't the white guys; it was the Blues guys. That's where the real fire is in all of this rock and roll music.

I like Telecasters because they are so versatile.

Led Zeppelin is what made me buy my first electric guitar: the Jimmy Page guitar sound.

My first Gibson was a '91 Les Paul Custom tobacco burst. I still have it - it's still amazing-sounding - but it took me a long time of saving up to get that guy!

Of course the folk guitar is the one I play very often, but I wanted a more electric sound.

I like a big neck – thick, flat and wide. I lacquered the fingerboard with Rustin's Plastic Coating. The tremolo is interesting in that the arm's made from an old bicycle saddle bag carrier, the knob at the end's off a knitting needle and the springs are valve springs from an old motorbike.

I wanted a Gibson type sound, but with a Strat vibrato ... I bought a body from Charvel for $50.00 and a neck for $80.00 - I slapped it together, put an old Gibson PAF in it and painted it up with the stripes

I'm sort of standing on T-Bone Walker's shoulders, Les Paul's shoulders, Lightnin' Hopkins' shoulders, Muddy Waters' shoulders, you know? And if I've inspired other people, I'm pleased. That pleases me greatly.

My first guitar was a Les Paul that I bought off a friend for 500 bucks. I worked a long time to save up enough money for it.

I know it is one of the most important instruments and inventions, the electric guitar, to me, since television or movies or anything like that.

Certainly that's what I like in a lot of the music that I listen to, kind of a sexual energy. Guitars and rock get it across best for me.

I'm a Telecaster connoisseur, and I love my Teles. I have one from almost every year since the very beginning, in 1950. I'm so obsessed with them.

I've always appreciated more guitar-driven and, in general, just rock music; that's what I listen to. I don't really listen to electronic music.

I'm pretty sure I was about the only kid in school who knew who Jimi Hendrix even was. Through my older siblings, I was getting turned on to all the great music that was happening at the time, and I really loved Hendrix.

There's such an energy and emotion to rock music, which is a lot of the reason I go back to '60s and '70s bands and look at some of the fire they had.

My dad loved Les Paul, and I wanted to be just like that.

I listen to 'Purple Haze' a lot. If I'm in the gym, I listen to that album the whole way through sometimes.