Gerry Rafferty Quotes

I have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

You should know that you need talent, passion, and luck to be a singer.

I never thought about making music because it has to be a hit. There are so many better singers out there who are better trained in music, but I am probably the chosen one... I have not discovered any formula for staying relevant.

My pursuit was more in the music thing, so I never went out pursuing movies. It was more just pursuing my singing career because people came to me for singing more than they did for doing movies.

I just want to work on music and make some new stars. I'm not interested in being a star.

I'm trying to focus on my job. I don't think that being famous is a job. My job is composing, singing, performing, but not being a star.

My advice to young people wanting to make music and to be in this industry is to really spend your time making music. Make so much music you have no friends. Make music. Figure out what it is you love, and... because if you're making cool art, then everything else will fall into line.

People are always coming up to me, thinking I've got some magic wand that can make them a star and I want to tell them that no one can do that. Making hit records is not that easy. But it took me time to realize that myself.

All of them had so much to offer us as far as, you know, knowledge in the music industry, and especially Randy and Paula because, you know, they've been artists.

I'll be the songwriter for pop stars and then they can be the front person and I don't have to be famous.

I want to be a soul singer.

There are a lot of unseen elements to having a successful singing career.

I love being a musician. I love the lifestyle. But I think it's probably as difficult and frustrating as anything.

I knew what I wanted to be, but I didn't know exactly how to get there. I thought you move to Nashville, you sing downtown, and someone discovers you, and you become a country music star. I had no idea.

My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else?

I used to read music books when I was 13. My mom was working at a library. She's a librarian. I would get my mom to check out any kind of books that had anything to do with the music industry. I read a lot about royalities, publishing, marketing, stuff like that.

It is never easy for anyone to have success in music.

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

I just love singing, songwriting and touring.

I always tell people that the music industry may be frustrating sometimes, but the singing never gets old. It's something I grew up doing, and I take the bitter with the sweet.

I'm a songwriter and I'd love to make that a part of my career.

It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me: 'So, what does it take to make it?' Well, first explain to me what you mean by 'making it': Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood?

I naively thought I had to go door to door, find somebody who could record me singing some songs. I didn't know Music Row, I didn't know anything! So after six or seven months, I went back home and went to college.

I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music.

Music has always been an important thing to me in my life and understand I've worked in the music business.