Drake Quotes

I sang in church growing up. Memphis is the blues capital of the world, we like to say.

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

Charles and I are from Augusta, Ga. - so we come from James Brown territory, soul music and Motown. And Charles has always had a lot of Southern rock in there as well.

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

Soul and blues were a definite influence on me. It was raw and naked emotion which you didn't get much where I come from.

The blues is played everywhere. There's no place I've been where they don't have blues or aren't interested in blues.

We need more Memphis culture in the industry.

In the late 1960s, English artists like the Rolling Stones and Joe Cocker began recording in the States, and at that point, they realised, 'We can get real African-American voices on our records; we don't have to pretend any more.'

A lot of people at the highest level, I never listened to. It was hard for me to listen to a whole lot of stuff. It didn't get there for me. Al Green, who's maybe my favorite male singer - to me, Al Green sounds like a saxophone player.

The black church in the South is the home of rock & roll.

You know Bakersfield was full of workers from the south, from Texas and Arkansas, and they brought their gospel and blues with them. And that's the sound I grew with.

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

My mum and dad used to listen to a lot of R&B and soul, so this was the way I grew up. Hip-hop, of course. But then as I grew older, I started listening to everything.

Obviously the music I listened to growing up helped create my musical pallet. My parents were into pop, soul, disco, RNB, Latin, jazz and Middle Eastern music.

Gospel music was very prevalent in my house. My mother also loved Nat King Cole. That was some of the first music that I heard. Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole and the Mississippi Mass Choir.

I grew up a huge Roy Orbison fan. He had such a crazy range. And I grew up listening to old jazz, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone. I remember trying to imitate female jazz singers because I had a higher range.

I think Julian Casablancas and Amy Winehouse are two contemporaries I envy.

I know people who have sampled gospel music, and then they go to clear the sample, and it's like, 'You can't take the Lord's music and make this.'

When I was young, I had an 'aha' moment in church. There was a thing called testimony service, and somebody would sing a song, and everyone else would join in, finding a note where they fit. During one of those, a light went on in my head. In that moment, I heard everything - Parliament, the Staple Singers, Curtis Mayfield, Prince - in there.

More than anybody in the music industry, the Staple Singers were like family to me.

I think of people like Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Isaac Hayes. They all came out of the South, and they followed a certain tradition and energy. That's no knock to groups like The Temptations or The Supremes, not at all, but they were way more polished in how they did things.

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

I was living and working with adult men who were playing a real art form. And I had been playing blues all my life. As soon as I formed my first band, we played Jimmy Reed stuff. So it wasn't like I was a white kid who was learning the blues from B.B. King records.

Growing up in a house where there was a lot of different musical influences - my mom listens to soul stuff and Top 40, my sisters would listen to hip-hop - and the church, I grew up listening to a lot of gospel stuff. So I think that plays a role in how I make music now because my music has a lot of range. I don't just do one thing.

A lot of your rock people, even early, like Elvis, have always come from the South.