Music Roots Quotes

I grew up listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and lots of blues, R&B and Motown.

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.

'Maruvarthai' was an exciting song for me because it showcased my Carnatic roots.

The music that I first fell in love with was American music, really. Nothing against British acts - I love them and will forever - but on the whole, it was the art of American storytelling in the kind of folk and blues lyrics that, if you scratch a little bit, there's a heartbreaking story there.

You can trace the E Street Band directly back to the Rascals.

I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll.

My father had played the guitar when he was young, and my uncle Jack had worked for Kalamazoo, before the war, developing guitar pickups. So there was a kind of family thing about the guitar, although it was considered something of an anomaly then.

The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits

Back in the Eighties, I used to write ballads on my acoustic guitar, so it seems very natural to me to go back to a little singing.

We started off as a garage band who played a lot of rock 'n' roll.

You literally cannot deny the fact that rock and roll was born because of blues, and blues is black man's music.

And obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some, and went seeking out the original artists, or in some cases searching up country music.

I started on acoustic guitar after I heard Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy.

Folk music - and what people are now perceiving as being folk music - is music that's quite close to the ground. The songs sound quite old, even if they're new. They sound like they've been sung by different people for years.

American music comes from the same tree, but sometimes we get to these places in history where we forget where things come from, and they get compartmentalized.

When I was 12 years old I discovered Bill Monroe and my dad got me a mandolin.

I always thought I was singing American folk music.

A lot of people seem to think I started this business. But rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let's face it: I can't sing like Fats Domino can. I know that.

Jazz was the pop music of its day, and all American popular music has stemmed from it one way or another.

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.

As far as rap goes, I grew up in Hollis, Queens, so early influences were people like Run DMC and LL Cool J.

When I started playing music, all I was hearing was whatever was on the radio.

When I go back to seek inspiration - whether it be from Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, the Beatles, Hank Williams, Ray Charles or Bob Dylan - it's from the performance. Those artists are in the studio playing their instrument and singing. There's no going back and redoing the vocals.

The whole trip that happened in the late 60s and 70s was kind of a throwback to a lot of folk styles. I got into it as well 'cause I started with the folk styles.

You see people who are 19 or 20 years old and they don't even know who The Who is. It's like, where have you been? Justin Timberlake? C'mon. Where are the roots?