Jon Landau Quotes - Page 2

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• Bob Dylan was the source of pop music's unpredictability in the Sixties. Never as big a record-seller as commonly imagined, his importance was first aesthetic and social, and then as an influence.

  Jon Landau

  Records, Bob, Firsts

  7 Copy quote

• Bob Dylan may be the Charlie Chaplin of rock n' roll. Both men are regarded as geniuses by their entire audience. Both were proclaimed revolutionaries for their early work and subjected to exhaustive attack when later works were thought to be inferior. Both developed their art without so much as a nodding glance toward their peers.

  Jon Landau

  Art, Men, Rocks

  4 Copy quote

• Bob Dylan has always sealed his decisions with the unexplainable. His motives for withholding the release of the magnificent 'Basement Tapes' will be as forever obscure as Brian Wilson's reasons for the destruction of the tapes for 'Smile.'

  Jon Landau

  Decision, Forever, Tape

  4 Copy quote

• The modern recording studio, with its well-trained engineers, 24-track machines and shiny new recording consoles, encourages the artist to get involved with sound. And there have always been artists who could make the equipment serve their needs in a highly personal way - I would single out the Beatles, Phil Spector, the Beach Boys and Thom Bell.

  Jon Landau

  Beach, Artist, Boys

  4 Copy quote

• The Beatles did their best cover work on Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally' and music influenced by Richard, such as Larry Williams's 'Dizzy Miss Lizzie.

  Jon Landau

  Long, Missing, Littles

  4 Copy quote

• The early Stones were adolescent rockers. They were self-conscious in an obvious and unpretentious way. And they were committed to a musical style that needed no justification because it came so naturally to them. As they grew musically the mere repetition of old rock and blues tunes became increasingly less satisfying.

  Jon Landau

  Rocks, Self, Musical

  Jon Landau (1972). “It's too late to stop now: a rock and roll journal”

  4 Copy quote

• The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches.

  Jon Landau

  Greatness, Expression, Discipline

  4 Copy quote

• My ambition was to be a record producer, and I had started doing that in the late '60s with my work with the MC5 and my friend Livingston Taylor.

  Jon Landau

  Ambition, Records, Producers

  4 Copy quote

• The Rolling Stones have been the best of all possible worlds: they have the lack of pretension and sentimentality associated with the blues, the rawness and toughness of hard rock, and the depth which always makes you feel that they are in the midst of saying something. They have never impressed me as being kitsch.

  Jon Landau

  Rocks, Depth, Rolling

  8 Copy quote

• The Who, England's most self-conscious band, have released 'Quadrophenia,' which in turn freezes in time our image of the mid-Sixties Mod sensibility.

  Jon Landau

  Self, Band, England

  11 Copy quote

• There is a 'patrician arrogance' to James Taylor that accounts in part for his popularity while it at the same time explains the critical resistance to his work.

  Jon Landau

  Arrogance, Resistance, Popularity

  4 Copy quote

• There is something complete about Stevie Wonder, and one senses that he is not only exceptionally important today, but will continue to be for as long as he chooses.

  Jon Landau

  Long, Important, Today

  4 Copy quote

• One gets the impression that Elvis Presley does what his business advisors think will be most profitable. My advice to them: Put Elvis Presley in the studio with a bunch of good, contemporary rockers, lock the studio up, and tell him he can't come out until he's done made an album that rocks from beginning to end.

  Jon Landau

  Thinking, Rocks, Advice

  4 Copy quote

• The Rolling Stones are constantly changing, but beneath the changes they remain the most formal of rock bands. Their successive releases have been continuous extensions of their approach, not radical redefinitions, as has so often been the case with the Beatles.

  Jon Landau

  Rocks, Rolling, Band

  4 Copy quote

• Since her landmark 'Tapestry,' Carole King has both oversimplified and over elaborated that masterful album's style until her music has become something more overtly but less effectively personal.

  Jon Landau

  Kings, Style, Albums

  6 Copy quote

• Sly Stone doesn't make good albums: only good records. His style is so infinite and revolves around so many crucial aspects that it has only come together perfectly on a handful of his singles.

  Jon Landau

  Style, Together, Albums

  4 Copy quote

• The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock; they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On 'Rock 'n' Roll,' John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock.

  Jon Landau

  Rocks, Idols, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• The Faces do not, as some have recently alleged, play badly. They are more than competent, especially at creating a mid-Sixties Rolling Stones-styled groove, as their excellent version of 'Memphis' proves.

  Jon Landau

  Play, Creating, Rolling

  17 Copy quote

• Atlantic's Jerry Wexler believes first-rate records are made by first-rate voices. He certainly has worked with enough of them: Clyde McPhatter, Joe Turner, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.

  Jon Landau

  Believe, Voice, Rays

  4 Copy quote

• The title song of David Bowie's 'Young Americans' is one of his handful of classics, a bizarre mixture of social comment, run-on lyric style, English pop and American soul.

  Jon Landau

  Running, Song, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• Aretha Franklin's 'Let Me in Your Life' is one of the few recent R&B albums that places the emphasis entirely and deservedly on a voice. Many R&B producers have been making records on which the singer is outshined by the song, the arrangement and the sound.

  Jon Landau

  Song, Voice, Sound

  4 Copy quote

• While the Beatles always had George Martin around to clean up their act, the Rolling Stones had Andrew Loog Oldham to coarsen theirs.

  Jon Landau

  Rolling, Stones, Clean

  4 Copy quote

• There is absolutely no doubt that the extraordinary Donna Summer belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

  Jon Landau

  Summer, Rocks, Rock And Roll

  4 Copy quote

• The early Bob Dylan was compulsively drawn to the conflict between stability and the search for immortality.

  Jon Landau

  Bob, Conflict, Immortality

  4 Copy quote

• The Stones were always exemplary of one of the best of all rock qualities: tightness. They have always been economical, the opposite of ornamental. Having a very clear idea of what they wanted to say they could go into a studio and make it all up on a three minute cut.

  Jon Landau

  Cutting, Rocks, Opposites

  4 Copy quote

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