Bobby Womack Quotes

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

I think it all started with Nina Simone. When I was maybe seven or eight, I used to listen to one of her albums every night before I went to sleep. For me, her voice was everything.

I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.

Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.

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.

Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield, those are the people who informed me in playing the bass.

I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got older, too, and would come to see me when I'm 80.

The kid at 9 or 10 who knows who Billie Holiday is... that's the coolest thing ever.

I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.

Probably my favorite artists to listen to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder - I haven't gone back in a really long time and really listened to them - my first guitar influences. It's been awhile since I revisited that.

We'd play the American bases and found all these wonderful records by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke. Without American music, there would not have been a British Invasion.

I am an old soul: I do know so much about music history.

I was heavily influenced by big voices when I was younger. People like Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Patti Labelle really spoke to me. When I got older, I was into Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and Lauryn Hill, but it wasn't until I started working with a voice coach that I really dove into jazz music.

I've always loved music. I grew up with older brothers and sisters who were into music, played The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin.

I grew up with KTSU, and that station gave me so much info about the pantheon of black sounds: reggae, gospel, blues, soul, hip hop, and mostly they played jazz. That was a major part of how I understood music.

I grew up listening to AM radio in the '70s and hearing all of that great soul and rhythm and blues music, which definitely influenced the way I sing. But singing gospel has made me a much more humble person. There are so many people who were geniuses who only a few people knew about when they were alive.

Stevie Wonder's records introduced me to '70s soul when I was 12 or 13.

I like listening to old soul music. I like Sam Cooke. When I was growing up, the first things I was listening to was Whitney Houston and Cher. They were really big inspirations for me.

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.

I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it's not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That's how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be a musician.

Once you establish a foundation of knowing what the greatest recording artists of all time were... Wouldn't you want your kids to know this stuff?

I never listen to Led Zeppelin. But, I mean, I don't think Robert Plant or Jimmy Page listen to Led Zeppelin, either. We all probably obsessed over the same old blues records growing up.

I spent a few years here in Memphis, in the late '70s and early '80s, where I was studying a lot of country blues players and their styles. So it seems like every record I'll do, I will appropriate these blues styles that I remember.

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.

Isaac Hayes told me once, 'There's no such thing as old-school. Either you went to school or you didn't.'