American Music Quotes

When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me. ~ Clint Eastwood

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references. ~ Carlisle Floyd

We're a gumbo of American music, and aren't ashamed to play pop or soul or rock because we all grew up on radio. ~ Jonathan Cain

My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties. ~ Barry Manilow

American music culture is black culture. ~ Yelawolf

Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it. ~ Dan Auerbach

I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions. ~ Henry Rollins

Paste may be the last great American music magazine left. ~ Patterson Hood

It's called a gui-tar. It's used to perform American rural music. It's said to be especially popular in Texas, " he told her. "It's also the instrument of choice for playing 'the blues,' which is a form of American music that chronicles the pain caused by poor decision making. ~ Adam Johnson

42. What is the name of her first EP? Title 43. When was her first EP released? September 9, 2014 44. What was she nominated for at the 2014 American Music Awards? New Artist of the Year 45. What was she nominated for at the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards? Best Song with a Social Message 46. What was she nominated for at the 2014 NewNowNext Awards? Best New Female Musician 47. What was she nominated for at the 2014 Capricho Awards? Revelation International 48. What was she nominated for at the 2015 People's Choice Awards? Favorite Breakout Artist and Favorite Song 49. What was she nominated for at the 2015 Grammy Awards? Record of the Year and Song of the Year 50. Which albums of hers are self-released? I'll Sing with You and Only 17 ~ Nancy Smith

I didn't grow up watching film but as a Ukrainian-American, music and stories and dance are crucial. ~ Vera Farmiga

I quite like American music, like The Fray - I'm a massive fan of them - and The Killers. I also like more acoustic stuff like Ed Sheeran; I like this English songwriter James Morrison and another singer called Ben Howard. ~ Louis Tomlinson

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. ~ Duke Ellington

I have been long associated with British music. I have favoured it as my alternate music next to American. ~ Leonard Slatkin

It is a cultural tradition that makes New Orleans what it is. It also represents the roots of American music and an important part of the African-American community in New Orleans. It unites people in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. It is absolutely critical to continue. ~ Bill Taylor

I never set out now to get a Grammy, or get an American Music Award, but it still is nice to be recognized. ~ Ginuwine

It's an honor for me to close out Mysteryland. In American music history this is hallowed ground. I think electronic music has a lot in common with the spirit of rock and roll and what Woodstock had going on at the time. We are kind of the new kids on the block and this music isn't accepted by everyone so we are still kind of getting into pop culture and I think its appropriate that this festival is here and kicking down the door. ~ Kaskade

Irving Berlin has no place in American music
he is American music. ~ Jerome Kern

The blues has been the foundation of all other American music since the beginning. ~ Willie Dixon

At its best, American music is the soundtrack of our long - and often painful - march toward a more perfect union. ~ Shawn Amos

Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis. The songs and sounds that come from here are uniquely American. ~ Shawn Amos

I've hosted the Soul Train awards, the American Music Awards ... and I had my own talk show. So if I can't host by now, what the hell can I do? ~ Queen Latifah

If you met my dad, I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But, Coldcut, they're based in the U.K. I'm a big fan of jazz music, so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to. ~ Eric San

I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center. I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music. ~ Ben Harper

I started with rock n' roll and ... then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country ... Then you go back from country into American music ... and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually. ~ Elvis Costello

Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice. ~ Taylor Hackford

I think the women - Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu - are doing new conceptual things and using their voices to create new American music. ~ Boz Scaggs

I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro. ~ William Christopher Handy

I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American. ~ Steve Vai

I didn't like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I'm trying to get back to. ~ Lulu

It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American. ~ Miriam Makeba

Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it's all African-American music. ~ Johnny Otis

I was interested in a whole range of music that I used to play, popular music
particularly American music
that I heard a lot of when I was a teenager," "I think at a certain point it dawned on me that myself playing this music wasn't very convincing. It was more convincing when we played music that came from our own stock of tradition ... I certainly feel a lot more comfortable playing so-called Celtic music. ~ John Renbourn

All roads lead to 'American Pie.' 'As American as apple pie' was the saying. It was some kind of a big American song that I wanted to write, which would be a conclusion for my show and bring all the songs home, which it still does. I can go anywhere I want with American music and come home to that. And it all makes sense. ~ Don McLean

The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish. ~ Virgil Thomson

What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds. ~ Carlisle Floyd

Tamara Bunke was the only woman to fight alongside "Che" during his Bolivian campaign. She was an East German national, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 19, 1937, of Communist activist parents. As a child, her home was frequently used for meetings, hiding weapons and conducting other Communist activities. After World War II, in 1952 she returned to Germany where she attended Humboldt University in Berlin. Tamara met "Che" Guevara when she was an attractive 23-year-old woman in Leipzig, and he was with a Cuban Trade Delegation. The two instantly hit it off as she cozied up to him and, having learned how to fight and use weapons in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba, she joined his expedition to Bolivia.
Becoming a spy for the ELN, she adopted the name "Tania" and posed as a right-wing authority of South-American music and folklore. In disguise, she managed to warm up to and entice Bolivian President René Barrientos. She even went on an intimate vacation to Peru with him. ~ Hank Bracker

I'd been listening to African-American music since the first record I ever bought, which was by Sam Cooke. And it sounds more like my private thoughts that I never thought I would be able to articulate - I never thought I would be able to express publicly. ~ David Toop

Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene. ~ Dierks Bentley

In fact, a lot of critics seemed to consider R.E.M. the first American music since the '60s to break out on its own and develop a stand-alone sound. ~ Michael Stipe

African American music can't happen in Germany or in Italy or in Mumbai. If America disappeared off the face of the Earth today, the greatest single cultural loss would be blues, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, rock-and-roll. ~ David Simon

Of course when you are a kid you listen to what your parents had around. A lot of gospel, jazz. Now when I started to listen to music on my own it was around the time of the birth of rock and roll. Shortly thereafter I started to get into more blues and more traditional rootsy American music. ~ Jorma Kaukonen

Ray Gomez is truly an unsung hero in American music. ~ Stanley Clarke

I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music. ~ Ian Anderson

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music. ~ Alexis Korner

We black Southerners, through life, love, and labor, are the generators and architects of American music, narrative, language, capital, and morality. That belongs to us. Take away all those stolen West African girls and boys forced to find an oral culture to express, resist, and signify in the South, and we have no rich American idiom. ~ Kiese Laymon

I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had. ~ Berry Gordy

It's like there's the rest of the world, and then there's America. Part of the reason I would really love continue to making music over here because so much of American music has inspired me, whether it's Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen. ~ Tom Odell

We're a staple in the American music culture. Like us or not, we're here to stay. ~ Jonathan Cain

I'm still kind of a hapless character in my everyday life. But when it comes to the writing, my influences are very old influences. I love American music of absolutely all stripes, including show tunes, advertising jingles, theme tunes from quiz shows, all kinds of American music. ~ Nick Lowe

The Blues? It's the mother of American music. That's what is is - the source. ~ B.B. King

We did not undertake systematic interviews with people now below the age of thirty-five, but in many of the interviews with their parents' generation we heard a bemused recognition that younger people who did not experience these events have very little interest in what happened in that long-ago time; and may even express hostility toward parents who dreamed of a new society. They are interested in the same activities and ideas as young people the world over - dancing, loving, listening to (mostly American) music, dressing in fashion, buying the latest gadgets, attending school and developing career ambitions. The past - even though it is the immediate past of their parents - holds for them no appeal, and they have little sympathy for its victims. Consumerism, not politics, is their passion; consumption, not citizenship, motivates them. ~ Patricia Marchak

I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like ... except for Show Tunes. ~ Terri Windling

I joke to people in the press that I realize I'm not black, I'm actually white. But I've got these roots in black American music. I love it. ~ Glenn Hughes

I love that there's this tradition of being able to discuss the heaviest topics and the gnarliest stuff that goes down in people's lives in traditional Southern American music. ~ Gillian Welch

I was into playing American music, especially the blues. ~ Mark Knopfler

Britney and I wore matching denim outfits [to the 2001 American Music Awards]. Yeah, another bad choice. I'd probably pay good money to get some of those pictures off the internet. ~ Justin Timberlake

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture. ~ Etta James

Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition. ~ Wynton Marsalis

Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana. ~ Robert Plant

Though many strive to hide their human libidinousness from themselves and each other, being a force of nature, it breaks through. Lots of uptight, proper Americans were scandalized by the way Elvis moved his hips when he sang "rock and roll." But how many realized what the phrase rock and roll meant? Cultural historian Michael Ventura, investigating the roots of African-American music, found that rock 'n' roll was a term that originated in the juke joints of the South. Long in use by the time Elvis appeared, Ventura explains the phrase "hadn't meant the name of a music, it meant 'to fuck.' 'Rock,' by itself, has pretty much meant that, in those circles, since the twenties at least." By the mid-1950s, when the phrase was becoming widely used in mainstream culture, Ventura says the disc jockeys "either didn't know what they were saying or were too sly to admit what they knew. ~ Christopher Ryan

The Bluesis the roots of all American music. ~ Willie Dixon

I wanted a trumpet concerto that reflected Native American music because, well, there aren't any. I looked around for one but couldn't find anything. So it's a wide-open field. ~ Christopher Moore

It's not just hip-hop that's dead. Mostly every form of American music is dead. It's been dead. R&B isn't really good. ~ Nas

The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues. ~ Willie Dixon

Now, music almost feels naked in my mind. ~ Sean Lennon

I used to take musical instruments home from elementary school. There were some music teachers there - we all learned instruments. A lot of us got started in public schools. Charlie Parker and Bud Powell, for example. But now there are no more music teachers in public elementary schools. It's like (Senator) Moynihan said, 'benign neglect.' Just let it rot and fester. ~ Max Roach

It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. ~ Victor De Laprade

I preferred MTV as it used to be when it was about the music - I don't like it that now they just have reality shows. Reality TV rots people's brains. ~ Georgia May Jagger

If the American Negro is to have a culture of his own he will have to leave America to get it. ~ Paul Robeson

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song. ~ Louis Armstrong

It is no accident that I mention our American friends, as they are always influencing our relations with our neighbors either directly or behind the scenes. Sometimes you don't even know who to talk to - the governments of certain countries or directly to their American patrons, ~ Vladimir Putin

A society is judged by the way it cares for its most vulnerable citizens. As an American, I am ashamed that we have turned out backs on millions of our children. I want to do my part to rectify this terrible situation. ~ Marlo Thomas

I've always been fascinated with the history of the Plains Indians and the history of the American Indian Movement in the '70s. ~ Jason Aaron

I tend to start with a full set of lyrics, and then my producer, Joel Little, and I work on the music collaboratively. ~ Lorde

I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character. ~ Herbert Hoover

Sometimes I like to make music together with a singer or with singers. ~ Klaus Schulze

I got my deal off MySpace.com. I wrote to J.R. Rotem. He is big producer. He's done a lot of stuff for Rihanna, 50 Cent, Britney Spears and etc. I thought, "Yo, this guy is really talented I want to work with him." Once I sent him message he didn't reply back. I kept on sending the messages. I kept on hitting him back like eight times a day. He eventually replied back like, "Yo, I want to hear more music." ~ Sean Kingston

Partying means drinking. It also means playing records by Lou Reed and Chicago, which I thought was a city but is also a band it turns out. ~ Ron Currie Jr.

There's too much rock that relies a fetishism or nostalgia for the old ways. That's a real enemy to music. ~ Matt Tong

It seems to me in retrospect that the department stores and the dime stores did an excellent job of extending the 'sacred space' of Christmas in those days. And I sometimes wonder whether for people of no religion, this might have been the only sacred space they knew. When people rail now against the 'commercial nature of Christmas,' I'm always conflicted an unable to respond. Because I think those who would banish commercialism from the holiday fail to understand how precious and comforting the shop displays and music can be. ~ Anne Rice

Curt Gowdy was a pioneer in our business and set the highest standards for everyone. His many contributions to ABC as host of 'American Sportsman' and other ABC Sports programs are indelible . ~ George Bodenheimer

If I'm playing country, I gotta have my country hat and my cowboy boots. I gotta have a voice, and the third thing, I gotta have I guess a little music to keep me in the right mind, a little pre-show something to get ya going. Lots of AC/DC, or I'll sit on youtube and find all kinds of stuff before we take the stage to get pumped up. ~ Hank Williams III

I'm outside the music I've made. I have no interest in it. ~ Michael Tippett

'A guitar would work.' But then again so would a flute. A horn. A banjo. A tambourine. A trombone. The drums. When you're mixing music and love, there really is no bad combination." -Elvis Ruby ~ Nan Marino

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master. ~ Duke Ellington

I do what I love, thank God. I get to make music and get inspiration through Judaism. I can see why people might be surprised, because it's not been done before. It's certainly not typical. People are always trying to wrap head their around it. But it's probably simpler than everyone thinks. ~ Matisyahu

Dancing ignite a blissful body, soul and spirit. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I joke, but only half joke, that if you show up in an American hospital missing a finger, no one will believe you until they get a CAT scan, MRI and orthopedic consult. ~ Abraham Verghese

She felt the adagio from Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez strumming at her inner thighs like a guitar, and then slowly moving upwards until it wrapped around her heart in its denouement. ~ Lawren Leo

That's why I love playing shows, you've got thousands of people sharing their personal passion for the music with each other, it's such a wonderful thing to be able to curate. ~ Colin Greenwood

I'm a great believer in the competitive system, and think that competition will bring us greater innovation and put American industry in information ahead of everyone also. ~ Harold H. Greene

If you can't define a winning exit strategy for the American people, where we somehow come out ahead, then we're wasting our money, and we're wasting our strategic resources. ~ Jon Huntsman, Jr.

I love Christmas. I really do love Christmas. I love being with my family and I love snow. I love the music and the lights and all of it. ~ Christina Applegate

I would describe my style for those who haven't listened to my music as definitely..up-tempo.
I try to have something nice, something people could dance to. It's kind of hard though to describe my sound in one record because I think when I approach music I try to do something different every day. Do a different vibe. ~ Kid Ink

Music can be appreciated from several points of view: the listener, the performer, the composer. In mathematics there is nothing analogous to the listener; and even if there were, it would be the composer, rather than the performer, that would interest him. It is the creation of new mathematics, rather than its mundane practice, that is interesting. Mathematics is not about symbols and calculations. These are just tools of the tradequavers and crotchets and five-finger exercises. Mathematics is about ideas. In particular it is about the way that different ideas relate to each other. If certain information is known, what else must necessarily follow? The aim of mathematics is to understand such questions by stripping away the inessentials and penetrating to the core of the problem. It is not just a question of getting the right answer; more a matter of understanding why an answer is possible at all, and why it takes the form that it does. Good mathematics has an air of economy and an element of surprise. But, above all, it has significance. ~ Ian Stewart