Ato Essandoh Quotes

I started to like blues, I guess, when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There was something about it, because nobody else played that kind of music.

Since I was a kid, music has been a huge part of my life. My parents had a pretty solid vinyl collection and exposed me to some amazing artists.

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

Once you're in a particular country, and you're surrounded by musicians who are so adept at traditional music, you suddenly realize how much there is to explore and digest and learn and experience.

When I was 12 years old I discovered Bill Monroe and my dad got me a mandolin.

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

The music that I chose during my life, it wasn't arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn't heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn't do it authentically.

My father was always playing this ethnic blues stuff around the house, and both my parents played. Then one day my father brought home Big Bill Broonzy, and there he was sitting in our living room playing, and blues was in my heart from the time I was 12 years old.

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

The classical music scene was completely unfamiliar to me. It was something that I didn't have the most fun associations around. A lot of people don't - they think of older generations and stuffiness. But it's not. You listen to the Overture of 1812, and you can hear a rock n' roll catharsis.

Without the blues, modern music would be nothing like it is now - not remotely.

When I first became aware of music, it was probably the same way a lot of people do - even more suburban or rural people - from my older brothers playing music.

Music was a big part of my upbringing. My mum and my grandma are very passionate about music.

Music's always been in my home. My dad plays guitar, and I grew up listening to cumbia and salsa and boleros.

I grew up listening to so many different things, and having a dad that also sang, music was innately born into me. Going through high school and college, I'd go see anyone who came to town, it didn't matter the genre.

I am fortunate that I was born in a family where music was already a part of life.

By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz.

I'm perceived as someone who goes out and searches for new music, but it was all present in my household.

My father played music, so I was always around music, even from the time I was born. My father actually was the one that originally got me into music.

It wasn't until I was about 17 or 18 years old that I got into music.

When I came across something I liked, I wanted to find out as much as I could about it. This was as true of hearing Hoagy Carmichael for the first time as it was later when I first heard Boulez.

People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.

We had a really vast music collection and I was raised around rock'n'roll, it's just the way it was.

When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.