Elvis Presley Quotes

Their eagerness for the big-band music and their ability to grasp the essence of it made me realize that today's generation has not been properly exposed to the big-band sound.

Historically, black music has influenced other cultures and other genres and created other genres.

I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are.

I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

We have to let the younger generations take our music - and approach it the way they want - but just teach them where it all comes from.

I like to take it back, cause I'm an old soul. Growing up, my brothers, I'd grow up hearing what they were playing, and that's how my taste has evolved.

I believe that you should not be just raised on what the music is right then. You should be raised on what is from your past, what your parents have grown up with, because it's a really big piece of your culture that you need to know about, and I'm glad my mother has done that for me.

That was the special thing about the Carolina Chocolate Drops. We didn't want to do music full-time. We weren't looking to get rich, which is good, because we didn't. But we went further than we thought we would go. We started that band to celebrate Joe Thompson and the black string band music. That's not really a recipe for commercial success.

Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music.

Unfortunately, the young generation, who I believe have their own place in the sun like I had mine; but I wish it was possible there were other ways to have them understand this music was here before they came, and the reason that it was here.

A lot of young musicians in Stockholm are about keeping tradition alive and moving it forward at the same time.

I have observed, too, that the people of the many countries that I have visited are showing an ever increasing interest in the classical and traditional music of their own cultures.

The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.

We have that storytelling history in country and bluegrass and old time and folk music, blues - all those things that combine to make up the genre. It was probably storytelling before it was songwriting, as far as country music is concerned. It's fun to be a part of that and tip the hat to that. You know, and keep that tradition alive.

I was rapping in 1939. It's old. The roots are complex. And kids don't know.

The music that I play and that I like is traditional music, maybe it's because of my age.

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

Because of the fashion, the young people don't have any access to the history of music, unless people like me revive it. There are very few people to revive it, because you can't earn any money doing it.

That's where I get my whole music theory from, my pops and my grandfather.

You literally cannot deny the fact that rock and roll was born because of blues, and blues is black man's music.

Doing the classics is always nice because it's a part of the archive, and that's what people love to hear, and I don't mind that.

My dad is actually an amazing guitarist, and he always had an incredible record collection, which is how I discovered things like Jimi Hendrix and Santana. I'll always be grateful for that.

My family wasn't in the music business, but they loved music.

Getting into the banjo and discovering that it was an African-American instrument, it totally turned on its head my idea of American music - and then, through that, American history.

People seem ready for a more in-depth idea of folk music, culture and history.