Norman Blake Quotations

Over the years, 15, 16 years, we've picked up all sorts of bits and pieces, ... And normally when we make an album we load a van up and deliver it all: old Wurlitzers, odd synthesizers and things.

Over the years -- 15, 16 years -- we've picked up all sorts of bits and pieces, ... And normally when we make an album we load a van up and deliver it all: old Wurlitzers, odd synthesizers and things.

There's more pressure on the melody when you don't have all the embellishments,

When I was a kid I listened to a lot of punk music, but then along came Orange Juice, ... They really broadened my musical perspective. They were self-deprecating and had a great sense of humor. And they sounded like Velvet Underground meeting Al Green. They called themselves 'the sound of young Scotland,' a play on Motown's 'Sound of Young America.'

We do hope people like what we do, but you certainly can't expect people to buy your record. But we've been pretty lucky. I'm not complaining.

It was sort of liberating in a way. We had to concentrate on arranging the tracks, we couldn't embellish them needlessly.

On the other hand, there's never pressure on one person to come up with an album's worth of songs every year, ... We only have to concentrate on four or five songs each. It's something we're all comfortable with; some other people wouldn't be. We're not very confrontational people; we like things to go smoothly.

Right from the start John said, 'Look, you guys have been doing this for years, so I'm not going to tell you how to arrange things,'

That sounds too much like hard work for us.

Unfortunately, I believe that we were uninformed because management and outside experts who reported to us failed to do their jobs and give us full, complete information.