Big Johnson & The Thrusters
Musician Quotes
There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of
music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've
got it.
-- Ron Wood
A guitarist sat tuning his instrument all through the first set that
the band played. Each time the leader pointed to him to take a chorus,
he would say, "No man, I'm still tuning up." Half an hour into the job
he was still not ready.
"Why do you need so much time for tuning?" asked the leader. "When I went to
hear Segovia he played a whole concert and I didn't see him tune up once!"
The guitar player gave a shrug. "Some cats just don't give a damn!".
A club date leader who was primarily a singer, held and plucked at a string bass
while fronting his band, but knew very little about playing the instrument. One
evening his pianist arrived at the job to find the leader holding a little boy
by the collar while he angrily cuffed him about the head. "Why are you hitting the
kid?" asked the pianist. The leader said, "The little brat twisted one of my tuning
knobs, and he won't tell me which one!"
Zoot Sims, the great tenor sax player appeared one noon at a bar wearing a dark suit,
white shirt, and a tie. Zoot's usual daytime costume was corduroy trousers and a baseball
jacket. "Hey Zoot," someone said, "How come you're all dressed up so early in the
afternoon?" Zoot adjusted his tie and grinned his gap-toothed grin. "I don't know.
I woke up this way."