Bing Crosby Quotes

I owe Elvis my career, and the entire music business owes him it's lifeline.

I think if the United States gave anything to culture at large in the 20th century, the most important contribution made was the popular song.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is marketing. You've got a bunch of faceless people in a back room who trademark a name that sounds very official. Well, if you had thought of it first, you would have been the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business, there wasn't no such thing as rock n' roll. When I started with 'Tutti Frutti,' that's when rock really started rocking.

In 1974, when I started working with the material that became 'Horses,' a lot of our great voices had died. We'd lost Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and people like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Late 20th century music was a really important thing. It changed the world, and I'm part of that, and now I'm part of the museum that celebrates that.

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

There's no outdoing The Beatles.

To be in one band that changed the world musically is pretty good, but to be in two bands that changed the world musically, that's amazing.

No, I don't think rock 'n' roll will ever fade.

Nobody can compare themselves to what The Beatles went through. It was wild.

None of the jazz greats made music for the purpose of you going to check out music before them. Michael Jackson didn't make music so you could go check out Sam Cooke.

The Rolling Stones are truly the greatest rock and roll band in the world and always will be. The last too. Everything that came after them, metal, rap, punk, new wave, pop-rock, you name it... you can trace it all back to the Rolling Stones. They were the first and the last and no one's ever done it better.

I come from a generation that was surrounded by popular music, but I don't know if anybody's ever going to move the ball forward as far and as fast as the Beatles did.

Jerry Garcia was a great American master and the Grateful Dead are not just a genuine piece of musical history, but also an important part of American history.

I learned music listening to Elvis' records. His measurable effect on culture and music was even greater in England than in the States.

Michael Jackson changed the format and history of music. His videos were films. He was the first who floated on the stage and changed the concept of a musical performance. He created something that's still the basis of a lot of what's done today.

The Beatles were just the beginning of everything music could be, just like the Stones I was Rolling along like a ship lost out on the sea.

If you look at the history of popular music, the most successful musicians have started out being really marginal and esoteric. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Madonna. Prince. Bruce Springsteen. Fleetwood Mac. David Bowie. Public Enemy. Nirvana.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

Not many people bought Velvet Underground LPs, but those who did, started a band.

I watched Elvis Presley become - I listened to Elvis Presley. I watched Chuck Berry become. I listened to Little Richard. I heard that music, and it was part of my upbringing.

Now I know I understand that it was Sgt. Pepper's Band, that put the sixties into song, where have all the heroes gone?

You can't love music without loving the Beatles.

There is nothing conceptually better than rock 'n' roll. No group, be it Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on Whole Lot of Shaking for my money. Or maybe I'm like our parents: that's my period and I dig it and I'll never leave it.