Frank Black Quotes

Fifty years from now, people will still be listening to Led Zeppelin. They won't even remember me.

That's why 60,000 people go ape when the Stones play 'Satisfaction.' The songs are part of their legacy, and you fall back in love with them over the years.

New York City has more rock history in its 305 square miles than most of America combined.

Elvis was a big influence to my music, but Loretta Lynn was, as well.

We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.

I think The Doors are one of the classic groups, and I think we're all tempted to feel like the time in which we grew up was somehow special, but I really do believe that there were two golden eras in music: The Forties and Fifties of big band, jazz and swing, and the Sixties and Seventies of rock. To me, they're really unparalleled.

My whole family's been involved with music, and it's been so since the minstrel days.

I grew up listening to the 60's and 70's... storytellers and poets.

Biggest lesson I've ever had in life is that blues had a baby and they named it rock 'n' roll.

I said if you want to be Keith Richards, you've got to listen to Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. Then I thought, "What did Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry listen to?" I said, "They listened to Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters." Well who'd they listen to? They listened to Robert Johnson. I said, "Ok, we'll start with that."

Is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that important to me? No. Is it something I've aspired towards? No.

The Beatles were a huge influence on me to write really good melodies.

Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had enormous talent, and Elvis was the major contributor to an entirely new genre of music. Sometimes their exploits were distasteful to people, but they left behind an enormous body of work that endures.

I think rock 'n' roll, in a way, has been dead for a long time.

Black people created rock music, it's a fact. Black people created bluegrass and rock and roll way before Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

If rock & roll is dead and gone, man, I am missing out on it.

There are a handful of music docs I'd love to do, including David Bowie.

Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten.

I believe Dad will be respected in 300 years, like Beethoven. As will Elvis, as will the Carter Family, as will Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams.

If nothing else, we grew up loving the old blues artists and Ray Charles.

The Hall Of Fame thing, it's an American thing. We don't have that in England or Germany or Australia or Russia or anywhere in the world apart from America. And it's an institution. What's that got to do with rock and roll?

I want Bappa to be amongst the best music composers. My father was a great singer and I also did quite well and now my son would take forward the legacy, as music is in our blood.

The Beatles are the classical music of rock n' roll. And rock n' roll is far more widespread than classical will ever be.

We're never gonna see bands like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath again. It's over.

It means a lot to a lot of people, 'Smoke On The Water.'