Kevin Olusola Quotes

The music that was popular in your youth seems to be the music you recall most vividly - and most nostalgically - for the rest of your life. But so is the music that was popular in your parents' youth.

I think that music has an endless life.

We've influenced other artists, and when younger generations become fans of those artists and hear about us, they discover our music too.

The Sonics I found later and that was pretty important.

I know when somebody's heard my music. I can hear it in their music.

I was mostly surprised by the rap artists, actually, that were influenced by Sabbath. That was a surprise. But it's very nice and I'm very honored. It's nice to know after 27 years now that what I said in the first place has stuck, and that was the belief in it.

So there's no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn't necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn't necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

My dad's music was a great inspiration to me.

Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet. I worked with him until he passed away in '98. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don't need a passport. I just flash my ring.

It's like my parents' musical tastes are the mother and father of my music. It's their fault for making me so emotional and in tune with my emotions!

Our music, you either get it or you don't. There's no middle ground.

Before I left, I opened a lot of doors for a lot of people to play the blues.

My dad has always been a big Ray Charles fan, and I've grown up listening to all kinds of music.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to see your music going from generation to generation.

Pops, he was a singer's singer. I loved to hear my father sing. He just was so laid-back and cool. I always wished I could sing like Pops.

When you see all of these bands citing you as influences, it makes you feel relevant.

I'll never quit playing country music, or at least acknowledging it, always, as the cornerstone of what I am.

I think, in music, you're always hoping that you'll have a like-minded audience and that the music you like making will appeal to them, too.

It was a free-for-all with music when I was growing up. My mother was a huge music fanatic so I was listening to everything from country to heavy metal to Indigo Girls to Elton John. I guess when I was really young I didn't like Willie Nelson, and she obviously loved him. Now I do too, I'm so thankful to her for playing his music nonstop.

'Let the music play on' would be my legacy.

Now that I am much older, I have had a number of sax players tell me I was responsible for them playing sax. Some of them I have admired over the years.

Our music will continue to have an impact in people's lives long after we finally call it quits.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

Both my grandfathers and my mother's brother were musicians.