Jim Keltner and I played together the whole time, he was 10 feet away from me. He's brilliant: You turn around and he's got maracas strapped to a mallet, hitting a tambourine. You listen back, you feel that groove, the genius of his vibe and what he brings to records. So I just had to find my knit in that blanket. It was quite thick.
"Every once in a while, I work on things and I feel like I'm in the old days. We got so used to that – going into sessions with Jim Gordon or Jim Keltner and the pocket was so strong! Everything was based on ensemble playing, whereas nowadays, at least half the work I do, I'm just overdubbing to sequenced bass and they want it to feel natural, but you're already handcuffed by the fact that this was done to a sequencer!"
“The thing I love about Bob is his fearlessness. There’s a fearlessness from some artists that transmits to the musicians playing. When that happens, you get the best from the musicians, because the musicians are not worried about tempo or about whether they’re rushing or they’re dragging or whether they’re not in the pocket. It’s not about finding a pocket. It’s more about searching for the vibe, searching for the thing that makes the song live.”
“There’s a famous drummer I’ve worked with a lot, named Jim Keltner. He’s an absolute legend. But when he plays a fill, he leaves… It’s free time, it leaves the click, it ignores the click when he plays a fill.”
