Ricky Reed Quotes

Unquestionably, our contemporary world of music is far richer, in a sense, than earlier periods, due to the historical and geographical extensions of culture to which I have referred.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

I just loved classical music, but I also loved playing rock guitar, and I loved playing piano, so it was a natural thing that those things would merge at some point.

Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock.

Blues became rock, rock became soul, and all of it was colorblind.

I think what makes the Byrds stand up all these years is the basis in folk music. Folk music, being a timeless art form, is the foundation of the Byrds. We were all from a folk background. We considered ourselves folk singers even when we strapped on electric instruments and dabbled in different things.

When we were first started we were doing a lot of Motown stuff, but actually playing it more in a rock way. Everybody in the band sang and we did a lot of harmonies.

I was born and raised in the Bronx, and growing up here, you would go down the block, and on one corner you would hear bachata, on another corner some salsa, and of course there was hip-hop and R&B all over the place. So for me, it is very organic to have these combinations.

We were so influenced not only by country music but by the rock bands of the '80s. Our focus was to bring in something different. Country music already had a George Strait and Alabama. We wanted to put some pop music in our show.

My mum and dad used to listen to a lot of R&B and soul, so this was the way I grew up. Hip-hop, of course. But then as I grew older, I started listening to everything.

There's so much music out there, and so many different styles that I've been influenced by, so each album reflects some of that knowledge or influence that I've had.

I've always been attracted to multicultural music. It's where the world is going.

'Nuyorican Soul' has a lot to do with our lives, growing up in New York, listening to all different styles of music, hanging out with all different kinds of people.

Presenting the American songbook as a living, breathing entity that's expanding all the time is very important.

In the late 1960s, English artists like the Rolling Stones and Joe Cocker began recording in the States, and at that point, they realised, 'We can get real African-American voices on our records; we don't have to pretend any more.'

The beauty of jazz is that it can accommodate all styles. You can take jazz and put rock in it, and it's still jazz.

American music is always best when it comes from a mixture of things.

I came from a strong jazz/ singer-songwriter/folk influence, but in L.A., I learned how to have a balance between all these genres and R&B music and hip-hop, mixing them all together.

I never necessarily played the music I listen to. I've always liked a lot of soul, roots-reggae, alternative psych-rock, and I feel like, with age, that's kind of come.

Ultimately, I think there's this umbrella term of jazz, and what's cool about not just what's happening with my music but this general sense of what's happening with this generation of musicians, is it's a very broad term, and we can incorporate all types of music, and we can be influenced and inspired by all kinds of sounds.

Music is constantly developing and changing.

I feel like it's a necessary part of musical development to go through that phase where you think that your favorite style of music is the only style of music, and I thought that for a while.