Charlie Haden Quotes

I've done the country, done the pop-rock, done the super-hard electro.

I did country way back when I was, like, 13-14 years old, and then I kind of fell into the pop genre.

In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.

Jazz is not the format where I want to stay, but it really is a starting point for me.

Who's to say a blues man can't play rock and roll?

I told all my punk friends, 'If I'm gonna do country music, I'm gonna milk it.'

I've always had a close connection to both rock and classical music.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

I love music, that it changes so much, but I also want to keep a bit of the country roots to make it country. I don't want to go too far away from it, or I would do pop music.

All along, I did what I was comfortable doing, which was to play the music I enjoyed and try to stretch the parameters a bit. Country and bluegrass and folk were my foundation.

If you're an impressionistic painter and you want to paint expressionism, you've got to change. You've got to figure out a way to do it and do it. If you've been playing jazz all your life and you want to start to play rock n' roll, blues, then do it.

The music that I've made in the past has had strong contemporary country roots, but I think moving on in music, I will branch out from that a bit.

My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

If you looked at my iPod, you would get a trip out of all the different music, from the real heavy metal to bluegrass to classical.

Music is music. It doesn't matter if I am trying to aim at country or trying to aim at pop.

As soon as I got into country music, it was like hook, line and sinker. I was so focused on country, I ended up leaving all those '80s hair-band CDs behind - which now I still wish I had, but I was done with it.

When I first started singing, I didn't know which direction to take - I sang rock & roll and all kinds of things.

I started as a jazz musician, not a singer, then I became a rock 'n' roll artist with Aphrodite's Child.

Rock music is a funny thing: You can actually take it too far sometimes, and then it's not rock music anymore - it's something else, but it's not rock.

I started out in rock, but I didn't want to stay there, and haven't.

I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.

I really like jazz and soul, but I also love so many other types of music, and I didn't want to be afraid to blend and experiment.

Reggaeton is what opened the doors for me, and I'm always grateful for that. I'll do reggaeton for life, but I want to show that I'm an artist who can do everything.

I'd actually like to make a country album one day. One of my idols is Neil Young, because he's kept himself from being bored.