Robbie Robertson Quotes

Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.

Elvis was a big influence to my music, but Loretta Lynn was, as well.

I hear a lot of influence from me and Timbaland's whole sound in a lot of records of today. But if you have classics like that, then I'm sure you gotta expect that it's gonna influence some people. So, I'm fine with that.

I wanna thank Biggie Smalls, Redman, Jadakiss, Tupac and Michael Jackson for being my theme music throughout my career.

As a kid, looking at Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, New Edition, the Temptations, Motown, people who I felt were huge artists, they made me wanna do something.

After I moved with my mother to St. Louis, my older sister and I went to see Ike Turner, who was the hottest then. His music charged me. I was never attracted to him, but I wanted to sing with his band.

My sound comes from my inspiration, which is people like Aretha and Jay Z and Kanye, as well as everyone from the Whitneys and Mariahs to Destiny's Child and Usher. They all inspired me growing up.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke - the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.

I don't know any Beatles songs. My dad never listened to Elvis or Sting or Bowie. Any band name that's on a t-shirt, I probably won't know their music, like AC/DC or whatever. I don't know what that is. As a kid, I would sing along to artists like Tania Maria.

The muse of music isn't just from Greek mythology, but living in people like the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin.

When you talk about *NSYNC or Backstreet Boys - we were like the New Kids, and New Kids were like the Bee Gees. But Girl Radical will be the first ones, and that's a crazy idea. That's what got us so excited.

It's not until I hear songs that I've done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the '60s and '70s has been.

There's not a hip-hop artist that didn't snatch of piece of Bob Marley. It's totally impossible.

The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didn't have, 'I love Frank' on it, it had, 'I love AC/DC', 'Guns N Roses', 'Pearl Jam'. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.

For me, Memphis has always been a city that holds a great deal of meaning and also leads me to a lot of thinking. Besides Sun Studio, which helped put rock n' roll on the map all over the world, the legendary Stax Studio also called Memphis home.

A lot of people say I tried to emulate Tupac, but when I look back at my career, we're very different artists. I took pages out of Pac's book, of course, and lots of other rappers - Biggie, Nas - of course you take pages out of those books, but you eventually make it your own thing. And I think I did a good job of that.

If it wasn't for KISS, there would be no Guns N' Roses. Bands like that made Guns N' Roses. We were five guys with five personalities and five different influences. The stars were aligned for us.

I really don't feel the need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, at the end of the day, it's just somebody's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have a particular process, and they're welcome to do it however they want to do it.

I think that for the five-year-old watching MTV right now, Lady Gaga is going to be an iconic person. In 20 years, the people who are here and talking to journalists will be like, 'Oh Lady Gaga changed my life, Nicki Minaj changed my life.' They'll be saying who influenced them and it will be Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, artists like that.

I had this image before Boy George, before the Beatles, before the Rolling Stones.

I'm big fans of all those musicians, B.B. King, Mick Jagger - they're all on my iPod.

None of the jazz greats made music for the purpose of you going to check out music before them. Michael Jackson didn't make music so you could go check out Sam Cooke.

Whitney Houston and Ella Fitzgerald are my musical mothers. I learned everything I know about true R&B, pop and jazz singing from these stunning performers and unparalleled musicians.

Without people like Dylan and the Beatles and people like Paul Simon, I think rock n' roll would have died out like Dixieland jazz.

Gang Starr was like the blueprint of my career.