"Records that havde influenced me are: the use of Jim Morrion's voice on the first Doors album, which was a unique way to use the voice at the that time. He was the first person I'm aware of to sing rock'n roll with a full baritone. Up until that time, if you didn't have a high voice, you would sing in a monotone, the way Mich Jagger did 12x15 or Bo Diddley - you'd kinda shout the song. Morrison sounded almost as if he was crooning, yet the background was not sedate. It had a beat, and I found out very quickly I could do that too; Bo Diddley was helping in the call-and-response, the irresisitbility of 'Hey, Bo Diddley, have you heard?' ... 1-2-3 and second line, la-de-da. I used that format with great effect, without having any words planned, in the original Stooges shows ... Chuck Berry was real helpful in the way he'd look around the culture, find a catchphrase, like 'Sweet Little Sixteen', which is what everybody used to say referring to a girl's 16th birthday party, or 'No Particular place To Go', where he talks about seat belts. Finding neat little things in the culture on which to hang a song. The girl in 'Little Quennie' hangs out by the record machine, 'looking like she's on the cover of magazine'.
Bob Dylan (Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisisted) and Lou Reed (the banana album) both influenced me by the wat they used breathy vocals and very efforlessly ride a strong beat beneath it. To me that music sounded like a bunch of little Tartar tribesmen sweeping along the deserts on their ponies, ready to bring savage visitation to all in their path, yet the vocal is almost floating over that. I used that technique on 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and 'real Cool Time'. 12x5 by The Rolling Stones, for its understatement of any emotional content, There are emotions in the music, but they're kept in their place, so it isn't weeping all over the place. It sounds hrash and tough, yet the beat is steady and nothing's overplayed. Frank Sinatra ('September Of My years') above all others, for the ability to carry the emotions in a song and to get a rise out of me, as a listener, on an emotional level. I felt something strong when that man sang.
Van Morrison (Them's first album) was a very powerful influence for the wedding of poetry and music and for the way he recycled ckliés like on 'One-two Brown Eyes' - 'Last night I went walking/ I heard somebody talkin'/ Better stop staying out late at night and fly right' is an old shuffle blues phrase, but with Jimmy Page, who did those sessions, playing that strange guitar behind him, and with that hyper beat, it was a new way to use those clichés; that was poetry. Sun Ra, for his ability to use music to take you voyaging; also, Coltrane for that matter - those records opened me up. And Tina Turner, not musicallly, because I'm not a blues shouter, and I don't have a falsetto or a hot scream, but for her stage presentation, the way she never breaks form, almost like a balinese dancer; the hands are up, palms are outward, the feet are always going, and the tension and posture always maintained."
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