Early Quote by Ry Cooder

Dave's playing and repertoire evokes memories of the golden era of Modern Jazz, and in addition to being a nice guy he happens to…

— Chris Cortez

I'll talk about the banjo all day long and the history of minstrel shows.

— Rhiannon Giddens

Alan Lomax is the person who I think should be given major credit for what has been called the "Folk Song Revival." My father…

— Pete Seeger

Sadly, I wish I had been able to play ["Miner's Prayer"] for [grandfather]. Yeah, I'll never escape the influence of him in my life.…

— Dwight Yoakam

My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a…

— Alan Arkin

We had a great educator [in the school band], a man named Larry Laurenzano. He was tough, but we knew that he loved us.…

— Jon Gordon

My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter.

— Gyorgy Ligeti

When I discovered Gil Scott-Heron, I discovered a musical hero, a man who spoke baritone truth to power over jazzy funk at a time…

— Will Hermes

I knew Bobby Dylan back in the days when he lived in the village. He used to come and see me and sing songs…

— Alan Lomax

“Speaking more generally about what attracted him to bluegrass banjo, he said it was 'just the sound of the instrument, and then the fire,…

— Blair Jackson

Our father taught us how to play. He's also our biggest inspiration and he opened our ears to a lot of older music, like…

— Henry Garza

When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my…

— Rhiannon Giddens