James Taylor Quotes

Yeah; I'm a much better blues player than anybody knows, but being in the kind of group I'm in, we were always trying to make popular records.

Mick Jagger's fans bought records with their allowances. Sinatra's people bought them out of wages.

I don't think I'm a country artist, really. I'm a country person, but I don't think I'm necessarily a country singer or musician.

I never considered myself like a pop musician or rock star, because that didn't really exist when I started.

I'm not trying to be the next Dave Grohl or Phil Collins.

Every time a new rock singer comes out they don't say, 'Are you the new John Lennon?' Every time a new rapper comes out, it's not, 'Are you the new Dre?' I am never sure why this sort of genre, the categorization is so strong. I have not earned the right to be called the young Sinatra, but give me time.

I'd rather be just a Korean musician as opposed to, you know, a K-Pop musician.

At heart I cannot accept that I am a well-known rock 'n' roll star and one of the greatest drummers in the world.

When you label something a singer-songwriter record, you cover many genres.

I don't care about the word 'pop'. The Beatles were pop; it's just what's popular.

I sang in the coffee houses of the country in the early '60s with no idea of success in terms of records or television. I just thought I was a storyteller. I didn't even think of myself as a singer.

Spitfire asked me if I had a problem talking about Van Halen or Extreme. I really don't. There are people who are just going to want to know what it was like to play with Eddie.

As I said to Ringo, I was in a successful Rock N Roll band. He was in a band that changed the world. That's the difference.

One month I'll be completely obsessed with Bob Dylan and the next Arcade Fire. I like early Elton John and David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I listen to a lot of American bands. But I like listening to new bands, too.

I am not a jazz singer. I wouldn't place myself on that footing. I wouldn't even enter that arena.

I know I'm not Freddie Mercury or Ann Wilson, and that's okay. You don't have to be a great singer to sing rock and roll. That's not what it's about.

I mean, I don't even think of myself as a musician, really.

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.

In England, rock music very rarely infiltrates the charts, but country music even less so.

Music television is all about the media-oriented version of what it is to be a rock star; it's not about what Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix were about - which included great images, sure, but they had spiritual and political and revolutionary content, too.

Metal is still the biggest music now in America.

I love the Country Music Hall of Fame. I don't think it's just a hall of fame and it's not just a museum. It's a schoolhouse. It's a place where people from all across the world can come and learn about this great genre that we're making a living out of.

The whole thing about rock music, pop music, is it's really for kids.

I don't think rock 'n' roll is necessarily a young man's game.

Our songs did not transcend being R&B hits. They were R&B hits that white kids were attracted to. And if people bought it, it became rock & roll. That's marketing. Why couldn't it still be R&B? The bass pattern didn't change. The song didn't change. It was still 'Yakety Yak' and 'Searchin'.'