Richard Rodney Bennett Quotes

I got into music when I was a little boy. My dad was always into jazz. I got my education from him. The first time I listened to jazz, he gave me a Thelonious Monk record. It was so different from anything I had ever heard. It took me a while to understand it, and I liked that. I liked the fact that it wasn't immediately palatable.

I was exposed to jazz and blues and gospel and country music and rock, and I was the only kid I knew who knew about that stuff.

I think I'm eclectic and I'm never afraid to not know an artist or a band or an album because I want to hear it.

I was enamored with music at a very young age. Everything started with kundiman, then evolved to Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, and eventually classic rock music.

I was a huge prog rock fan as a kid in high school, and I'm so thankful for that.

My parents are music fans, even though neither of them play an instrument. I was exposed to their record collection, so I love everything from Joni Mitchell to Bruce Springsteen.

The music I heard growing up, since there was no TV or cinema or record covers, I didn't know if it was black, white, hip, square, male, female... whatever. I'd hear melodies and things and got intrigued on that level.

Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing 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.

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.

I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.

I like soul, I like rock, I like new wave, I like punk music, I like blues, I like jazz, and I was brought up on all of them from a young boy all the way to my teenage years, when I was wild and crazy, in college.

Growing up, I didn't come from a musical family. Neither of my parents played an instrument, sang out loud, or listened to the radio with frequency. The record collection in the living room was only about 2 feet long - and that included 4 solid inches of Neil Diamond and Herb Alpert.

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.

My dad raised me on metal, but my first serious love was hip-hop.

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.

I love heavy music, but you see, I had fallen in love with a radio station in Vegas that played nothing but Eighties music. That had a real profound impact on me.

I do feel a responsibility because most people like me that are my age or younger, they don't quite make it over to the jazz side. They flirt with it, but they don't quite marry it.

I got a lot of influence from my father, honestly. He'd take me in his car. I'd hear Carlos Santana. I'd hear Queen. I'd hear all these Turkish people, like, bands that he grew up listening to. He was in a band as well.

Music is there for us to explore. To intentionally limit yourself to one, two, or three genres is limitation at its worst. Music is huge; it's a gigantic history lesson, and if you are true music fan or a musician, you should explore it. It's all right there in front of us.

Between Prince and my dad's fusion-jazz records, I didn't have a choice in being funky.

My folks have played everything from rock, disco, pop, funk, and blues. My dad has always brought and played different genres like jazz, classical, and Latin. With all this in my pocket, I feel I have a taste of everything for my influences.

When I first started playing music in 1955, there was just a small body of people that knew it. It was a very esoteric type of thing.

My father was a jazz listener, and I think, at least before I was 5, I was not so into that. Although there were records that emphasized percussion that I liked, like Baby Dodds.