Early in his career, he was looked at more as a singer/songwriter, ... As time went on, he was viewed more as a cabaret artist. I missed that image of the singer/songwriter. |
He brought the chops right from the beginning, ... What I pushed for was for him to go beyond, in terms of continuing way beyond where he normally would. |
He is one of the few people who can get on a stage in an arena in front of any audience anywhere in the world and and play original songs for hours (that) everyone would be familiar with and sing along to. The list of people whose music has this power could be counted on one hand, tops. |
He is playing guitar because he wrote the songs on the guitar, and the essence of the song is contained in that performance. As far as the new album goes, there was no attempt to recapture anything. |
He sang differently when he was playing the guitar, ... There was a purity to the vocal that was more natural and less of a performance. He was less able to think about what he was singing and it sounded better. |
He's never been part of any style, and he's crossed different boundaries of pop and rock and different kinds of music at different times. |
I don't know what makes someone hip. The goal is artist achievement and the best work we can do with no limitation. |
I noticed that when he played guitar, he was a lot different singer than the guy I saw on the big stage. It was less of this big performance. There was more feeling. It's probably as simple as you can't think about how you phrase the vocal if you are also concentrating on guitar. |
I think he can always have a career making music. People will always be interested in what he does, ... Regardless of any other things going on in their lives, people are always interested by the great acts, and there's no questions he's one of the greats. Regardless of anything else going on, he's still Michael Jackson. |
I think that American V may be my favorite of all of the albums in the American series. It's different from the others, it has a much different character. I think that this is as strong an album as Johnny ever made. |
I've always loved his songwriting and I feel like he's one of the great American songwriters, ... I liked the fact that he never really fit into any category. He didn't fit anywhere -- he was rock 'n' roll and not rock 'n' roll. He was a force unto himself. |
In Neil's mind, what separated him from all of his Brill Building songwriter counterparts was he wrote songs on the guitar and everyone else wrote on the piano, ... Guitar is equated with rock in a way piano has never been, so Neil has an unusual mix of guitar-based (rock) songwriting mixed with Brill Building melodic (piano) approach. |
In Neil's mind, what separated him from all of his Brill Building songwriter counterparts was he wrote songs on the guitar and everyone else wrote on the piano. Guitar is equated with rock in a way piano has never been, so Neil has an unusual mix of guitar-based (rock) songwriting mixed with Brill Building melodic (piano) approach. |
It was an interesting, eye-opening experience, |
It's a tentative feel with him playing guitar, and the songs feel like they are coming from a true and honest |