Charlie Byrd Quotes & Sayings

A musician has to find a way to make his music mean something special - spiritually or however you can. — Charlie Byrd

The guitar is a means of expressing music, When you get into the emotional side of it, then it's not the guitar that matters so much as the music itself. But the guitar is the vehicle I use. It's how I express myself. As for the emotional side, music takes up where language leaves off. To try and verbalize what music says, emotionally and spiritually, is futile. Let me put it this way, Louis Armstrong once said if you've got to ask, you'll never know. — Charlie Byrd

A person should design the way he makes a living around how he wishes to make a life. — Charlie Byrd

That jam was so much fun that by the end of the tour, we just jammed on all of the songs. — Charlie Byrd

The guitar chose me. — Charlie Byrd

We would play, then they would play a set, then we would jam on the last song. — Charlie Byrd

Music's not like becoming a doctor, who can walk into a community and find people who need him. — Charlie Byrd

And a musician has to learn to be frugal and to carefully manage financial affairs. — Charlie Byrd

Usually, no one quite knew where Django Reinhardt was going to be, but I met his brother and about an hour later in walks Django with an entourage of friends. He always traveled with a large group-carried his own admirers with him, the most sinister-looking bunch of hoodlums you've ever seen. I walked up and offered to buy him a drink. That seemed to be the right thing to do ... he was the first really brilliant solo guitarist I ever became aware of, I had records of his when I was 10 years old. It just blew my mind that anyone could play a guitar like that. Still does. — Charlie Byrd