Ritenour Quotes & Sayings

I don't give a damn unless I'm fond of a person;but I'd sacrifice my life for those I am fond of; the rest I'd throttle if they stood in my way ... And you may not believe me but if I still set a value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will regenarate me, purify me and elevate me. But you don't understand that. — Leo Tolstoy

I had redesigned my entire amplifier system for this tour because airlines are very strict now. — Lee Ritenour

I've done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I'm onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create, and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album. — Lee Ritenour

Why didn't I know about Sedona before? Why did no one tell me? It's breathtaking. It's ... indescribable.
Well, all right, not literally indescribable. You can describe it. You can say, There are these huge red sandstone rocks everywhere, jutting up from the desert, making you feel all tiny and insignificant. You can say, There's a kind of rawness to the landscape which gives you goosebumps. You can say, There's a solitary bird of prey hanging above us, high in the sky, which seems to put all of humankind into perspective.
You can say all that. But it's not the same as being there. — Sophie Kinsella

I used a baritone guitar with a very unusual tuning that became the body of the composition, while the classical guitar is on top of it with the main rhythm part. — Lee Ritenour

Well, Smoke n' Mirrors has very much a world music flavor and it doesn't park itself in one country. It borrows heavily from the Brazilian angle, which is dear to my heart, and I recorded several albums with that flavor. — Lee Ritenour

My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he's also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion. — Lee Ritenour

I always recommend to any player to always compose their own music. It's one of the best things you can do to find a road to your own style. — Lee Ritenour

If you play the very subtle jazz tunes with acoustic pianos, acoustic bass and it's a dead standard, you are going to play very differently. It depends on the music. — Lee Ritenour

You read all the way through to the end of one, only to find out that the husband dies. You hurl the book across the room, breaking the bedside lamp. When your mom comes home that night, you tell her what happened. You ask her for books to read where no one dies.

Two days later, you find both of your parents in the living room with a pile of novels on the coffee table. They are skimming through them one by one, making sure every character lives to the end. That night, you have a new stack of books to read and you open up the first one, confident it won't break you down.

It is the first time in a long time that you have felt safe. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

In 2010, I had been playing guitar for 50 years. — Lee Ritenour

Arranging is the way I put my stamp on my music as much as my guitar playing. — Lee Ritenour

Even though there are some great keyboard players on the album, there are a number of songs with no keyboard on them and the backing is all guitar oriented. This is first time I've ever done this actually. — Lee Ritenour

The real lesson of 9/11 that I think we have still to learn is that this is a world of interdependence, in which all of the challenges of environment and climate change, of jobs, of disease, of war and terrorism, are cross-border problems that cannot be met one nation at a time. — Benjamin Barber

At a certain point, people in Panama thought that everything was going to be solved as soon as Noriega was gone. Of course, the disappointment was huge. — Ruben Blades

Zamajobe is great. She's a terrific singer from South Africa. — Lee Ritenour

I always love making albums. I'm passionate about it and it's something that's healthy for the soul and spirit. — Lee Ritenour