Aaron Neville Quotes

My mum used to listen to Motown. Diana Ross was my first singing teacher, really. I'd just sing along all the time.

My dad gave me the 'Introducing Dionne Warwick' album when I was, like, 14. It was the first time I'd heard Burt Bacharach's songwriting and her voice, and it rocked my world. She's such a great singer and communicator. It really helped me shape my own style.

I'm obsessed with the sound of today, but I was raised on the Motown sound.

I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.

If I had grown up in any place but New Orleans, I don't think my career would have taken off. I wouldn't have heard the music that was around this town. There was so much going on when I was a kid.

I listened to King Oliver and I listened to Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp... I listened to everything I could that came from that place that they call the blues but, in formality, isn't necessarily the blues.

I grew up listening to a lot of soul music, which has probably informed the way that I sing on my tracks.

I was singing doo-wop on the corner under the streetlight with four other guys when it wasn't called doo-wop. We just got together and sang, so that music is inside of me. It's a lot of stuff that has been rolling around in here and becoming this compost and has made me who I am as a singer.

In my vocal, I think you can hear something of my earlier times when I'd sing in subway halls for the echo and perform doo-wop on street corners. But I had a lot of influences, too - singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton.

My dad was a soul fan and a singer himself, and he loved vocal harmony, stuff like the Beach Boys and Motown like the Four Tops, which was a big influence on me.

The many sounds of Memphis shaped my early musical career and continue to be an inspiration to this day.

The groups, though, were my inspiration way back then. I liked Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers.

I'm very much a traditionalist, but I think it's important to know about tradition so that you can evolve the music you are deciding to make.

Doo-wop is the true music to me, man. Doo-wop was what nurtured me and grew me into who I am, and I guess even when I was in school, the teacher probably thought I had ADD or something every day, because I'd be beating on the desks, singing like the Flamingos or the Spaniels or Clyde McPhatter or somebody.

The gospel music and doo-wop is what has informed me personally.

I didn't grow up with classical music. My father was a folk music singer.

The first record I was really into was the Drifters' 'When My Little Girl Is Smiling.'

I want to reach back to when R&B meant something, to when it made impressions on people.

But, I enjoy music from lots of people. And you also have to also remember that I grew up in a household where people like Fats Domino, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Earl Scruggs, and so many others were at mama's house. So, I heard everything growing up.

Everybody's family plays them music, and my grandma used to play a lot of old-school stuff, like Ron Isley and Gladys Knight. Earth, Wind & Fire is the one I started paying attention to. My uncle introduced me to R&B, like Dru Hill, 112 and all those dudes.

I've always had wanderlust to try and do different things, but I always return to the music of the Carter family.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Big time blues and music city. It's always been in my bloodline.

When I was a child, there was an old man who toured the villages with just a guitar. The first time I heard him singing Skip James songs, I thought he was singing in an African language.

Some people's parents listened to the Beatles... but my family is Alquimia, Celia Cruz, and Carlos Vives - this old, rich Colombian music. I loved hearing that while I was growing up.

Once I tried to find myself as a musician and a composer, I went back and saw that there was something special about Puerto Rican music. I knew that before, but had never sat down and thought about it. The more I learned about it, the more it found its way into the music I was writing.