Musician

I have no regrets, though I was the first artist to stylize the national anthem, and I got a lot of protests for it. I have no regrets. America has been good to me. I'm glad that I'm here.

Music. It has always showed me that I could do what the other kids couldn't do. So I will keep playing and singing and entertaining, as long as the good Lord lets me. That is my life.

I never knew whether I'd make it as a star but I always wanted to.

I'm in a museum. I'm a relic.

I loved John Lennon, by the way.

I didnt go to the high school prom. Couldn't get a date.

Now everybody has been doing the national anthem in their own style, but in 1968 I was the one that took the heat. It cut my career for quite a while.

I contend that if it wasn't for Jimi, the gadgets we use for electric guitars now wouldn't have happened. He was an inventor, in a sense - as well as being great artist.

The only thing I can say to the people of Israel is that I love them and I am a strong ally.

The day I stop learning and I don't try to make myself better on the guitar, that's the day I hang it up and say, 'Goodbye.'

When I did the anthem, I did it with the understanding in my heart and mind that I did it because I'm a patriot. I was trying to be a grateful patriot. I was expressing my feelings for America when I did the anthem my way instead of just singing it with an orchestra.

In 1970, my label decided I should do a Christmas album and I put a bunch of tunes together. We couldn't decide what to call it and so I said 'Why not just say Merry Christmas in Spanish? Feliz Navidad.' They said, 'That's cool, Jose, but we need a title song.' So I just sat down and started to play.

I was very, very fortunate that 'Chico and the Man' was on TV, that helped me quite a bit. Of course, having the No. 1 Christmas song in the Spanish market, 'Feliz Navidad,' doesn't hurt either.

I did whole Latin albums and it was like Beatlemania for me in the Latin world, the screaming girls, not being able to leave the hotel, at the airport met by screaming fans. That was something!

I didn't have romances when I was in school. Girls didn't want to go out with me because I was blind.

When I was 15, I became an avid fan of Andres Segovia. He brought so much respectability to the guitar.

When I did the national anthem, I did a soulful, kind of gospel-y version, but it was controversial with the war veterans, just the people who wanted to hear it the old, clinical, atmospheric way, and I didn't want to sing it like that.

Some people wanted me deported - as if you can be deported to Puerto Rico.

If I've influenced people, so be it, but I don't dwell on those kinds of things. I just put out my music. If I influence someone without knowing it, I'm happy about it. I try not to think about those things because it's not about me.

I felt bad about the controversy because they stopped playing my songs on American radio stations. But there was nothing wrong with what I did. Now everybody sings the national anthem the way they want.