Quotes About Influence

I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.

Music that was made in the 60s and 70s did come from a really soulful place. The seed for the songs written in the 90s were planted in those songs, even though they were samples.

Ironically, for a few million people in the Far East, I did become an English teacher through my music.

I was really into music. I started playing guitar also when I was nine. I wanted to be in the Beatles, even though John Lennon died the year I got a guitar and the Beatles broke up before I was born.

You can't make jazz without using certain elements of Latin music.

Jazz is such a powerful cultural statement that it's almost as if it's intertwined with society.

I got my interest in Lotte Lenya and the Brecht-Weill canon from my parents. And I love classical music - I got that from my parents. I love Cole Porter - that I got from my dad.

I also like Western classical music and jazz.

No matter what I do, my songs come out in a certain style, and if that sounds like Dead Kennedys, then there's probably a reason for it. Don't forget, I wrote most of those songs, music and lyrics.

My 10 year old son likes it. He's trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music.

After all, in today's music scene every band seems to steal from other bands.

If kids say I'm just a gospel rapper, I won't be able to get in their cars.

I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.

Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.

Everybody always wants to rebel against their parents' music, but nobody listened to music louder than my dad.

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

I really do love Diana Ross; I grew up listening to her records. I grew up in a little town in Mexico, so while we got the music, we never got the experience of watching her.

I don't really like to infuse music with politics - but I wouldn't say as a general statement that it shouldn't be.

If my peers had a significant impact on my music, my music would probably be a lot more popular.

I was a pop-music junkie. My parents were into Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. They weren't too excited when I had Aretha or the Stones pumping.

Elvis epitomised America, and for that we shall be eternally grateful. There will never be anyone else like him. Let's all rejoice in his music.

Music has fed me a lot of ideas... The film BLUE VELVET came out of Bobby Vinton's version of the song BLUE VELVET.

He's a world-famous name to people who care about his music, but there are many people who have never heard of George Gershwin and those numbers increase.

Musically, I think I change music like I change clothes! What I listen to on a day to day basis is really contingent upon my mood and what's going on in my life.