Rhythm And Blues Quotes

Rhythm and blues started even before phonograph records were being produced because black people entertained themselves. It wasn't done for money. It was done for entertainment. Most white people didn't know anything about this because prejudice kept them from ever seeing what was going on. ~ Jesse Stone

The Righteous Brothers were purely rhythm and blues, black music. ~ Bill Medley

I came from a family where my people didn't like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby - "Pennies from Heaven" - Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard. ~ Little Richard

The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or maybe see a show that evening. ~ Levon Helm

Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things. ~ Ray Davies

What's holding me up is I'm confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn't reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers ... synths. That's what people are buying. Because that doesn't reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don't want to be there. Back there, I'm talking about blues records ... The roots of rock 'n' roll is rhythm and blues and that's like really where I'm at, where I was always at. ~ Joe Strummer

The Beatles and The Stones were basically inspired by American Rhythm and Blues. ~ Mick Taylor

When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me. ~ Chris Thomas King

It's always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn't. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it's music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic ... You're pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I'm a musician. ~ David Sanborn

I'm crazy about James Brown. I'm crazy about soul music. And then the blues. Rhythm and blues. ~ Bill Nighy

Back then I was still listening to rhythm and blues, and my aunt took me to see a Pete Seeger concert. And it gelled. He made all the sense in the world to me. I got addicted to his albums, and then Belafonte and Odetta - they were the people who seemed to fuse things that were important to me into music. I think Pete the most because he did what he did to the point where he took those enormous risks and then paid for them. ~ Joan Baez

I grew up listening to AM radio in the '70s and hearing all of that great soul and rhythm and blues music, which definitely influenced the way I sing. But singing gospel has made me a much more humble person. There are so many people who were geniuses who only a few people knew about when they were alive. ~ Patty Griffin

I love Ruth Brown, not just her singing, but Ruth Brown has more girl power than anyone, because she fought hard against people who ripped her off and then helped other artists through the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. ~ Ronnie Spector

The third note in a chord is what depicts whether it's major or minor. Rhythm and Blues hardly ever uses it because it means that the melody is free to move between major and minor because you're not clashing with the third being depicted one way or the other. ~ Robert Palmer

It used to be called boogie-woogie, it used to be called blues, used to be called rhythm and blues ... It's called rock now. ~ Chuck Berry

Teenagers did not have, before rock 'n' roll and rhythm-and-blues - they did not have any type of music they could call their own once they got over 4 or 5 years old until they were well into their 20's and considered adults. ~ Sam Phillips

Having a diverse sense of taste - or lack of taste - I loved so many different things. I was drawn to the stupidity and excitement of glam, I had a thorough upbringing in rhythm and blues. ~ Paul Westerberg

I would think, to me, growing up in the south, growing up with all the gospel music, singing in the church and having that rhythm and blues - the blues background was my big inspiration. ~ Jackie DeShannon

I want to go back to the format that radio started with rock n' roll, with country artists and rhythm and blues with that oldies type feeling. I want to put it all together and create a Top 40 of rhythm and blues and country and straight blues with Wolfman at the reins. ~ Wolfman Jack

Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique, irreplaceable. More than twenty years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense. And he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of this country. ~ Jimmy Carter

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. ~ Kathleen Battle

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

I was singing when I was five years old. My sister and I both had the talent from mom and dad, and she was in opera and I was into pop and uh, rhythm and blues, anything, I was about a four octave singer. ~ Carl Gardner

It was so easy living day by day Out of touch with the rhythm and blues But now I need a little give and take The New York Times, The Daily News. ~ Billy Joel

When you sit down and think about what rock 'n' roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock 'n' roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues. ~ Little Richard

You can't seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues - you can't seperate it. Because that's where it all started, and that's where it all come from - that's where I learned to keep rhythm - in church. ~ Art Blakey

I grew up on the precursors to rock and roll, rhythm and blues. ~ Bobbie Ann Mason

Everybody started calling my music rock and roll, but it wasn't anything but the same rhythm and blues I'd been playing down in New Orleans. ~ Fats Domino

Change is ubiquitous. Only: elementary processes cannot be ordered along a common succession of instants. At the extremely small scale of the quanta of space, the dance of nature does not develop to the rhythm kept by the baton of a single orchestral conductor: every process dances independently with its neighbours, following its own rhythm. The passing of time is intrinsic to the world, it is born of the world itself, out of the relations between quantum events which are the world and which themselves generate their own time. ~ Carlo Rovelli

He was half again my size, but when we embraced, I felt like I was holding him up, and it was all I could do to remain standing. He buried his face in my hair, his body shaking against me with the spasmodic rhythm of unrestrained sobs. It was almost more than I could bear gracefully. ~ Rachel Vincent

To those of us gathered here today, Matthew Connell filled a number of different roles in our lives. Matthew was a son, a brother, a father and a friend. Matthew's last days in his young life were bleak, suffering ones. Yet, we must remember the real Matthew, the loving young man who had a great lust for life. A keen musician, Matthew loved to entertain friends with his guitar playing...
Renton could not make eye contact with Spud, standing next to him in the pew, as nervous laughter gripped him. Matty was the shitest guitarest he'd known, and could only play the Doors' 'Roadhouse Blues' and a few Clash and Status Quo numbers with any sort of proficiency. He tried hard to do the riff from 'Clash City Rockers', but could never quite master it. Nonetheless, Matty loved that Fender Strat. It was the last thing he sold, holding onto it after the amplifier had been flogged off in order to fill his veins with shite. Perr Matty, Renton thought. How well did any of us really know him? How well can anybody really know anybody else? ~ Irvine Welsh

The problem is that a lot of the blues stations are late on Saturday night, and like a lot of people, I ain't no vampire! ~ B.B. King

When I was a kid I really liked the guitarist of The Doors [Robby Krieger]. He plays blues, but he plays a lot of melodic things. He plays scales that are kind of unusual, and some bent notes. ~ Stephen Malkmus

Maybe it was just part of growing up with someone. Once you have a rhythm and stay with it long enough, it's not hard to find again. ~ Sarah Dessen

High school marching band was its own little microcosm of the world. More a study in sociology than in woodwinds and brass: There were the band geeks, pimply and a tad too greasy, making out with one another every chance they got. There were the no-nonsense go-getters, eager to fill a line on their college applications, marching without rhythm or passion. There was the percussion section, hipsters-to-be whose arms would be full of tattoos in a few years' time. And there were the tuba players, chunky and asexual, as if they were slowly morphing into their instrument of choice. ~ Leah Konen

It's uncommon, but there are some people who just have a delayed circadian rhythm and they just - they sleep better during the day then they do at night. So they've - a lot of those people with delayed sleep phase disorder they start to work in bars, they work some of the late night shifts, they sort of adjust to doing it more and more as time goes on. ~ Shelby Harris

A small crowd had gathered to gaze at the astonishing display of color: vivid blues; regal purples; soft, candy-floss pinks; strawberry reds; vibrant lime greens; sun-bright, buttercup yellows; rich oranges; and creamy, vanilla whites. Tilly's eyes were unable to take it all in, her mouth unable to suppress a smile of sheer delight. It was as if someone had poured a box of paints onto this one street, leaving nothing with which to brighten up the drab gray of the rest of the city she had just passed. ~ Hazel Gaynor

My stride falters. We've done this dance a hundred times. I know the steps - two steps forward, ten steps back. We circle the floor and can never quite find our rhythm. ~ Corinne Michaels

Some were in Gaelic and some in English, used apparently according to which language best fitted the rhythm of the words, for all of them had a beauty to the speaking, beyond the content of the tale itself. ~ Diana Gabaldon

To tell the truth, in Pacific 231 I was on the trail of a very abstract and quite ideal concept, by giving the impression of a mathematical acceleration of rhythm, while the movement itself slowed . I first called this piece Mouvement symphonique. On reflection I found that a bit colorless. Suddenly, a rather romantic image crossed my mind, and when the work was finished, I wrote the title Pacific 231, which indicates a locomotive for heavy loads and high speeds (a type unfortunately disappeared, alas, and sacrificed to electric traction). ~ Arthur Honegger

In the cool of evening, in the silent shadowy barn, as we lay watching the sun ducking behind the treetops in the distance, I could hear my heart beating out the rhythm of my love for Frank. And when I rested my head against Frank's warm chest, I could hear his heart beating out the same sweet song for me. ~ John Inman

I was in love with the lyrics, the rhythm, and the way it could sweep me away to another world. ~ Jessica Sorensen

I love New York, but being there the whole year, it gets a little crazy with the speed and rhythm of things. ~ Penelope Cruz

Being Latina means I have culture I guess. We party together, cry together, and cook together. Or at least my family does as much as we can. We know where we're from and we have a certain kind of rhythm and understanding. Togetherness. As I get older it becomes more apparent that there is a community in this industry that is working together to rise up and fight against the misinterpretation of Hispanic and what it means to be a Latino-American nowadays. ~ Alicia Sixtos

The vast open sea at night is a song being written; a rhyme, a mysterious and gentle arpeggiated work of Beethoven. It's sung by the waves as they travel on the face of the ocean, and their lyrics are the rhythm of the pounding surf. ~ Giselle V. Steele

When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. ~ Miyamoto Musashi

In those days, I didn't know how guys like Clapton and Beck were getting that searing blues lead sound, so I developed my style to be rhythmic and chord-based, with simple lead lines that you could almost hum. ~ John Fogerty

Living here on Earth, we breathe the rhythms of a universe that extends infinitely above us. When resonant harmonies arise between this vast outer cosmos and the inner human cosmos, poetry is born. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

Are you kind enough, on your little planet, not to shut that rhythm down? Not to crush underfoot the singers of songs and tellers of tales and wearers of silk? Because it's monsters who do that. Who extinguish art. Who burn books. Who ban music. Who yell at anyone with ears to turn off that racket. Who cannot see outside themselves clearly enough to sing their truth to the heavens. Do you have enough goodness in your world to let the music play?

Do you have soul? ~ Catherynne M. Valente

I listen to blues music a lot and that's a good person feeling bad and celebrating that pain by releasing it in that kind of joyous fashion. ~ Henry Rollins

Literature destabilizes thought by breaking open language and smuggling in sound, rhythm, and image--an invasion of aesthetics. More easily than analytic writing, poetry can emancipate itself from the standard definitions of words, enabling a breakthrough to new (and perhaps wayward or even nonsensical) meaning, which can then develop after the fact--different at each new reading. Literary language is presumptuous. It dips into the unknown in order to get nearer to a truth different from that of the superficially visible. As the poet Franz Josef Czernin described it, it is as though one step after another into emptiness could become a ladder. Literary writing can take the writers themselves by surprise; it can disturb and disappoint them--for stirring up turmoil is inherent in metaphor. Thus with every flash of understanding that comes from hearing or reading a poem, the fundamental work of thinking is taken up anew. ~ Marie Luise Knott

Blue had never believed in death until then. Not in a real way. It happened to other people, other families, in other places. It happened in hospitals or automobile crashes or battle zones. It happened
now she remembered Gansey's words outside Gwenllian's tomb
with ceremony. With some announcement of itself. It didn't just happen in the attic on a sunny day while she was sitting in the reading room. It didn't just HAPPEN, in only a moment, an irreversible moment. It didn't happen to people she had always known. But it did. And there would now forever be two Blues: the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn't believe, and the one who did. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm - the relationship between shapes and values. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Art itself is female - it is full of graciousness, cadence, color, rhythm. It's full of love and grace. ~ Juan Gabriel

Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns; it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies, they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm, the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air. I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song, for I know well that only words, that words alone, like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

They chanted the psalms and praises, and as always the rhythm fastened itself to his heartbeat. It seemed unfair that the prayers could affect him this way, against his will; that he could scoff at the sentiments, yet find himself mouthing along. He imagined himself at ninety, toothless and doddering, unable to remember anything except for the morning prayers. They were his deepest memories, his first music. ~ Helene Wecker

The world always seems like it's going to hell when you're depressed. And, of course, it always is going to hell in some way. That's what makes it so hard to tell the difference between Armageddon and the blues. ~ Andrew Klavan

I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny, but the more hurtin' the music was, the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself, but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life. ~ Chris Isaak

Poetry was syllable and rhythm. Poetry was the measurement of breath. Poetry was time make audible. Poetry evoked the present moment; poetry was the antidote to history. Poetry was language free from habit. ~ Damon Galgut

Each day had the same bloody rhythm: mortars at dawn, car bombs by 11: 00 a.m., drive-by shootings before tea, and mortars again at dusk. At night the death squads went to work. ~ Richard Engel

I grew up with a piano, and my aunt taught me chords. I played with bands in high school and I could do like, C chord, G chord, D chord; really simple, rhythm piano. ~ Cristin Milioti

Gently he probed her mouth, his tongue stroking hers in an erotic rhythm that had her nipples tightening and her pussy dampening. ~ Savannah Stuart

And that is the essence of wisdom - to be in harmony with nature, with the natural rhythm of the universe. And whenever you are in harmony with the natural rhythm of the universe, you are a poet, you are a painter, you are a musician, you are a dancer. ~ Osho

I grew up in the South with my father; blues and country, that's always been my core. But I had it in me not to do what was expected. I wanted to find my own footing. ~ Lisa Marie Presley

The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants. ~ Kendare Blake

Do you believe in God?' Grace asked him. The question was not strange. They were past strangeness.
'Of course' he replied. It was easier than the truth, simpler.
'Why?'
'Because without God' he started, his voice slipping easily into the lilting rhythm of recitation, 'we have no reason to believe in reason. Without God, our reason is an accident of the cosmos, as ultimately inconsequential as the spinning of the planet or the pulling of the tides. Reason becomes unimportant, and hence untenable. Without God we have only belief, and yet we are left with nothing to believe in'. ~ Bernard Beckett