Johnny Rivers Quotations

When I came back to California in the early '60s I was hanging out with Jimmy Bowen, Phil Spector, and I wanted to be a record producer and work with other artists.

My first really good guitar was a Gibson J-45.

One thing will lead to another and somebody will come up with a riff or a line or something we build from.

One of the first groups we signed was the Fifth Dimension.

I got to see all these incredible blues players, like Jimmy Reed.

I didn't get to talk to him, I just kept looking at him. Elvis had all this greasy hair and pimples on his face; he played a mean guitar and sang like no one else. I thought he was the coolest guy I'd ever seen. I wanted to be just like him.

I accepted an offer to do a concert for the reopening of the Mall of Memphis.

He was signing everyone else up, ... He just didn't think I could sell any records.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

Jack and I usually get together and sit around in the afternoons and start throwing ideas around.

I think after 1970 or so, after I sold Soul City, I took off for awhile and didn't do too many gigs.

I was working at this club in downtown L.A. from four to eight at night, just Eddie Rubin, the drummer, and I.

James was back there on a vacation, ... He was one of my favorite guitar players. I had written this song ('I'll Make Believe') that everyone said sounded like a good song for Ricky Nelson. I gave it to James. He took it back to Los Angeles and then called me and said, 'Hey, that song you gave me, I played it for Ricky and he likes it. He's gonna record it.' I went, 'Wow.' That was a big deal at the time because Elvis was in the Army and Ricky was the top guy.

I think my favorite album was probably Realization.

What I really remember is that people camped out everywhere, and the fact everybody expected it might turn into a big nightmare with all sorts of hassles because back in those days everybody was smoking pot and taking acid.

We were the hot young band around there, ... I still have newspaper articles and stuff like that.

Performing live, that's the ultimate thing. That's where it starts and that's where it ends. It's all about playing music.

Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were.

The web site and the Internet are a whole new ball game.

About two months into the Whisky, I borrowed some money and rented a remote recording truck.

It was a trio - Eddie Rubin was playing drums, Joe Osborn on bass. And that's when we got approached on the idea of the Whisky A Go-Go.

Even Woodstock turned out to be a disaster. Everybody was stuck in the mud and people got sick.

I've got a Fender Concert amp from the '60s, the one Joe Osborn used. He played his bass through it.

After that initial success, every chance we got we'd hire that remote recording truck and just record stuff at the Whisky because it was so inexpensive.

I learned some chords and I started watching anybody I could, once I really got into it.

I loved playing and I was actually working two jobs.

In 1965, Gibson made the red one I use now, and a black one, which was the first black 335 they ever made.

In early '57, I bought a Fender Telecaster.

I play my old songs but I have to keep playing new ones. That's what keeps you going.

But I always loved songs with great lyrics.

I'd gone through periods where I didn't work live performances for probably seven or eight months at a time.

A lot of young artists don't realize that it is a business. But the acts who survive over the years are the ones who take care of the business end of performing. Mick Jagger does it, so does Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan. They know how to sell and promote themselves and their music. They understand the financial end of this business.

The first time I went to New York, I met Alan Freed.

The first amp I had back in the '50s was a small Fender.

And all I was doing was playing all those funky blues tunes and rock and roll songs I'd played with my band back in Baton Rouge in the '50s.