R. Kelly Quotes

Early inspirations included Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie... Those were the people I actually wound up studying just to hone my craft.

One of my big inspirations was Chuck Berry, and his playing was always about the rhythm and the lyrics. So I've always been that way in my playing, really.

As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

I never got lessons. I took influence from Chet Baker, Ian Dury, and Joe Strummer. I don't hear my voice and think, 'Yeah, that's a banging voice!' It's more about putting the right emotions into the right words and the lyrics than anything else to me.

It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are.

I could tell it was a popular move as a writer to walk down the bass lines while you were writing a song.

I was just obsessed with soul singers who had these big powerful voices. I used to listen to Aretha, Whitney, Mariah and try and imitate them, note for note and riff for riff.

I have been influenced by many different artists at many different stages of my life. Starting out, it was people like Elton John, Billy Joel, Ben Folds, and Fiona Apple. As I got older I got deeper into the work of bands like the Beatles, artists like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Etta James, and Joni Mitchell.

Probably my two biggest musical influences were the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, in chronological order. Both of them have had a very simple-sounding musical style that's actually quite complex as far as popular songs are concerned.

For the most part, I've been influenced by black singers and singers I couldn't sound like. Whenever I tried to do a dark note or a bent note, I would just sound like Hootie And The Blowfish.

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.

I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.

I've learned a lot about my voice, and about things I can do with it. Maybe that's why my sound has become a little more pop.

I always wanted to sound like a man, like Jeff Buckley or Tom Waits.

I was told all my life to sing like Aretha Franklin, or Adele, cover myself with black clothing and show more soul, sing bigger.

The Beatles were a huge influence on me to write really good melodies.

All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

My dad gave me the 'Introducing Dionne Warwick' album when I was, like, 14. It was the first time I'd heard Burt Bacharach's songwriting and her voice, and it rocked my world. She's such a great singer and communicator. It really helped me shape my own style.

When I first started singing in Paris, I sounded horrible: I was just singing to get some money to eat. And I wasn't singing my own songs: it was Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix. Eventually, when I wrote my own music, my style just came out of my own place.

My first couple shows, I figured I should be playing the guitar and singing. That felt weird, but I got good at it pretty quick, and I learned my songs and how to play them.

I compose melodies in my head and then interpret them musically with my guitar and keep them recorded. The guitar helps me to build unique chord structures on simple melodies.

I sit around and try to play along to certain songs that I really love. It helps you explore new territory.

You can't get a better education in what it is to write songs until you listen to American soul music.

I'm enjoying doing research, to get better at the guitar, to get better at rhyming. That's an essential skill.