Motown Sound Quotes

Definitely just growing up in general influenced me; Detroit happened to be where I was. I feel like the city definitely has made an impact on my life and made me who I am. Detroit has an unmistakable soul - nobody can duplicate the soul we bring to the game. From Motown to J Dilla to Eminem to anything.

I definitely grew up to Nina Simone and a lot of Ella Fitzgerald. And I loved Amy Winehouse. I loved that sort of soulful singer.

I love - you know, I'm a big fan of Prince and Curtis Mayfield and Smoky Robinson. It's something to be said about a man who can be very masculine but still display that sensitive side, and that falsetto does it perfectly.

I like Stevie Wonder as my favorite non-pianist pianist. I mean, I shouldn't call him a non-pianist, because he's really a great pianist, but he doesn't feature it that much - he uses his keyboards and his piano technique to support his great songs and so forth, but he can really blow.

If I could collaborate with any artist, I would want it to be like Marvin Gaye. Someone like who they wouldn't expect me to do a feature with, like, very iconic.

When I was growing up, my dad would always be playing Motown around the house. He loved Stevie Wonder and the Supremes and got me into Dionne Warwick. It was the best music I'd ever heard. It was just that extremely deep, human, thought-out stream of ideas. You can always hear something new when you listen to that music.

My mom actually had a band called Six Pack - even though there were seven of them - who went around Chicago performing popular songs. Her voice was like Gladys Knight mixed with Aretha Franklin.

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

I don't think you can recreate anything from the past. You can not do it. If you're going to go out and imitate a Motown sound, you can't do it, it's impossible because of the studios and players involved and the atmosphere.

My favorite period is when we lived in the land of the three-minute song. The Motown thing - I thought they were genius in knowing that's as much as a listener can take.

Of all the '60s - there was Elvis, there was the Beatles, there was the British invasion, Jimmy Hendrix, and Woodstock - the No. 1 record was 'The Twist.'

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.

I was in about in the 8th grade when I started recording R&B, so much of what was on was the Motown sound, and The Beatles had pretty much come over and taken America by storm.

I was living on the wrong side of the tracks in Evanston, Illinois, in a home for boys. We had these Jackson 5 records. I really related to their voices - they were about my age, but they were doing it.

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

The Isley Brothers, there's a group that stays together because they're a family band.

Doo-wop was full of blues for me.

I never thought I would be recording on any professional level, so to be doing a rockabilly, Motown, pop soundtrack in a L.A. studio was completely bizarre and amazing.

I have mad love for the way we were taught and trained back in the day. I mean, those of us - like Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight - we didn't give into this new wave of celebrity.

As far as favorite 'overall package' record of all time, I'd have to say 'My Girl' by The Temptations. I like everything about it, not only the composition - but the arrangement, the production, the lead vocals, the background vocals, the horns, the strings. That one I listen to over and over again.

I'm listening to a lot of oldies.A lot of Al Green, Marvin Gaye. Luther Vandross... they were some of my icons.

I'm a real Otis Redding fan, and I just think he sounds so good. He sounds like he's always at the end of a long day, and he just won't give up. I just love his wearied devotion - that beautiful, beautiful, weathered sound.

Being a child of the 1970s, I remember cleaning up on the weekends. we would listen to everything from Marvin Gaye to Frankie Beverly and Maze.

I'm an old spirit, and my voice tends to be kind of heavy and loud. I've been referenced as 'a young Aretha.'

My brothers and I had a gospel quartet, and that was the only music people listened to. But I was already gravitating towards songs by Sam Cooke, and then one day I put on a Jackie Wilson record, and baby, I was thrown right out of the house.