James Black Quotes

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

My parents listened to music in our house all the time when we were growing up. It was everything from Dolly Parton to Paul Simon... We packed in everything.

I think my love of music comes from my dad. I was born with an ear for music, like him, and started with the piano when I was 4 but fell in love with the drums. My dad always has music playing.

See my father knew a lot about music, he played the piano and he would do theory and stuff like that, but I didn't learn anything from him, but I played that for him and he liked it a lot.

Growing up, music was an important part of my childhood. I see it being just as important in my children and all children's growth and development, and in a parent's connection with their children.

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!

Music was around in my family in two ways. My mother would occasionally sing to me, but I was mostly stimulated by the classical music my father had left behind. I had an ear for music, I suppose, so that's what began my interest in music.

Music has always been a huge part of my life from a very young age, and today it remains a very powerful and natural way for me to connect with people, as well as my children.

My dad was a great guy; my mother was wonderful. I was very lucky to be around music from the time I woke up until I went to bed.

My first experience with the arts must have been the sound of my mother singing to me when I was in the womb. The sound of my father singing to me when he held me. The sound of The Temptations records that they played.

My mom loves music and it poured into my childhood.

My dad played music so I was around it at a really young age.

Playing with my grandfather, grandmother and my parents, I came to music pretty naturally.

I grew up seeing my parents perform and sing, and I just always wanted to be singing, too. Music has always been my deepest passion and what I felt most connected to.

I really do love Diana Ross; I grew up listening to her records. I grew up in a little town in Mexico, so while we got the music, we never got the experience of watching her.

Music is something I couldn't live without. My dad was into music, he played for pleasure - guitar, piano. I started off doing jazz, singing with a lot of fabulous musicians here in London before I went to the States. And I still take piano lessons every Wednesday.

My house was full of music. My main memories are of the record player at home: it was all Beatles and Rolling Stones, and we danced around the living room; that started me off on instruments, and I've done nothing else ever since.

My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe.

I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.

My mother was a singer, and both of her sisters were singers. There was always music around.

Music has always been around with me.

I grew up with classical music blasting in my parents' living room and my older brother's practicing saxophone in his room listening to jazz... a beautiful chaos.

I was raised on the Southside of Chicago, and my whole family was musically-inclined.

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.

The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.