Jim Root Quotes

There are many examples of great songs that become more famous when they are covered.

We don't need another Woody. Even Bob Dylan knew he couldn't be Woody Guthrie... I like Woody Guthrie fine, but I don't need the 50th generation version of it.

All good music, whatever its date, is ageless - as alive and significant today as it was when it was written.

I feel like, paying homage to an artist, it's better to do something that's inspired by them - a new work that's inspired by them - versus another person saying they redid your song.

I get a lot of joy out of covering other people's songs, and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them.

After Chuck Berry died, it seemed web sites popped up like mushrooms to show where he'd taken the guitar introduction to 'Johnny B. Goode' from to prove that his music was nothing new, that it was only ignorance, or vanity, that led his listeners to think that not only was the music different - they might be, too.

You need to put yourself in the way of the music that stood the test of time. You're doing yourself an incredible disservice not be interested in the width and breadth of it.

You don't necessarily have to write a song to make it your own. After all, Elvis never wrote a song in his life.

It seemed like an impossible task to do full justice to all Luther classics. And yet these landmark artists have done just that. Memorable performances of wonderful songs that ensure Luther's legacy will live on forever.

A great song will be great forever - it's timeless and classic in that way.

There's some songs you can cover, and I've covered and butchered a few, but you can't do them all.

Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter of all time. I was in awe of him. But his music wasn't my music. My music was the blues.

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature.

I think we're in a disposable world and 'Stairway to Heaven' is one of the things that hasn't quite been thrown away yet.

On the musical side, I always wanted to kind of carry on Pink Floyd's sound. You know, Pink Floyd always had such an original, creative and masterful sound, but there are no new albums. My thought was that there's a way to keep their sound alive.

I don't care if it's a Cole Porter song, or George Gershwin, or Lennon/McCartney, or Elton John, or you know, whoever, Bob Dylan. Great songs are great songs, and they stand the test of time, and they can be interpreted and recorded with many points of view, but yet still retain the essence of what makes them good songs.

I've always loved War's Low Rider and Sly Stone's Thank You, and I just wanted to put my take on them.

I take my hat off to people like the Stones, but it's not for me. I couldn't do that. Jagger is brilliant and long may he rock. I couldn't make my career out of old songs; it would do my head in.

Great classic music that I've been turned on to has not only inspired and influenced me, but it has had an effect on my songwriting.

When you do a lyric for 'April in Paris,' those who have heard it before can hear it in a different way now. It can add perspective to a great piece of music that does not have a lyric and may be inaccessible to lot of ears because people don't deal with complex music very well.

I'm really not a songwriter, so if I hear a song, I feel it and like it, I'll do it. But I'll make it the way I want to hear it.

I started off as a kid singing with my dad. My dad was my best pal. But he had seven kids, and I was the only one who was kind of interested in what he was playing and singing at the piano. And he was not only my dad, but he was my best pal, and I was interested in doing whatever he wanted to.

Every time I do a cover, I completely... pick apart - I take apart the entire song and really reconstruct it. I try and make it my own.

I don't pretend to be Joy Division or New Order. What I do is very straight forward: it's an interpretation and a celebration of the music, with different people. Everyone looks at it and knows exactly what I'm doing.

I don't think I'm turning back the clock by doing these old tunes. I love rock and roll and popular music. It's just that the spirits of the singers whose songs I do are living within me. That's why the songs come out in the voices of the original singers. I'm not doing imitations. That's the way they sound inside me.