Bela Fleck Quotes

My earliest memories have to do with music.

As a kid, I was obsessed with the Who. They were the most important band to me. Songs like "I'm One" helped me get through high school.

There are more inspirational people in music than there are in politics.

My mother was the first singer I had contact with. She sang constantly to us around the house, in church.

I think it's important for fans to know that but if I'm doing something that inspires me musically then I think it will inspire someone else too.

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

I can't remember the exact age, but I do remember being very young when I started to dance and listen to music.

My brother Steve, who was a few years older than me, had 'Bad' on tape, and I remember listening to 'Smooth Criminal' and just thinking it was the coolest thing ever. I must have been five or six at the time, and I remember walking around school by myself thinking I was Michael Jackson. I wasn't dancing, exactly - more like walking musically.

It's hard to remember my childhood without remembering music.

My father's music is all I remember from my childhood.

My dad bought me a guitar when I was very young, and I never looked back.

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

Both my parents worked, so I was home alone a lot, and I would listen to their records. They belonged to the Columbia House record club, so they had records!

I grew up as a kid looking at artists like David Bowie and Prince; I really admired them.

I remember li'l ol' Hank Jr. - he was just a baby back in them days, you know - but he used to hang around. His mama would bring him around. He was just a natural.

I loved music from earliest childhood - from as long as I can remember.

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

My mom took me to a Dolly Parton concert when I was 3.

People like Prince don't have to care about anything, but they care because they want music for the future to be great.

'Power Rangers' has changed a lot of lives.

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

I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work.

There's a lot of music at my fingertips that I can be influenced by. And just because I play a horn, I don't need to sound, or try to capture, what was happening before me. I can just respect it and learn from it.

I think I get a lot of ideas from when I was a kid, listening to Casey Kasem's 'American Top 40.'

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.