Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone. — Berry Gordy
I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well. — Haley Reinhart
While growing up in Birmingham around a lot of West Indian people, reggae and calypso were big influences early on but Otis Redding was the one person who made me wanna sing myself. — Roland Gift
When I was a kid growing up in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business. — Joey Ramone
I'm the tower of power, too sweet to be sour. — Randy Savage
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
This is my genre...the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of mankind as realized in the teeming black ghetto. — Jacob Lawrence
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand. — Stevie Wonder
I'm the tower of power, too sweet to be sour. I'm funky like a monkey. Sky's the limit and space is the place! — Randy Savage
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow. — Nina Simone
I like this town, it's really great. They've put me in The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This town is about music. It's about the kind of music I like. — Otis Blackwell
Music just ain't what it used to;
We used to have songs that you could shoplift or boost to. — Jadakiss
The motto goes: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll.
I prefer: Love, Hugs and Hip-Hop Soul. — Daniel Dumile
The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources. — Bonnie Raitt
It's gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me. — Chuck Berry
Short Motown Quotes
Motown was the mecca. It was every writer's dream to work there. — Valerie Simpson
Motown's policy was to build one act at a time or their favorites. — Brenda Holloway
Well, I had an after hours club in Vancouver and when any of the Motown acts would call. — Tommy Chong
I feel Motown really exploited me. — Brenda Holloway
Motown, Motown, that's my era. Those are my people. — Hillary Clinton
One thing I can say about the Motown acts is that we were a family. That's not a myth. — Smokey Robinson
Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist. — Smokey Robinson
People still look at Michael Jackson as being a Motown artist. — Smokey Robinson
Once you're a Motown artist, that's your stigmatism, and I was there from the very first day. — Smokey Robinson
Motown will always be a heavy-duty part of my life because those are my roots. — Smokey Robinson
I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had. — Berry Gordy
There are certain things that we take for granted that simply would not have existed without the great migration. Motown, for example, would not have existed - it simply would not, because Berry Gordy, the founder of it, his parents had migrated from Georgia to Detroit where he founded Motown, and where did he get his talent? — Isabel Wilkerson
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. — Elton John
When we did a lot of that Motown stuff there were four of us on the front line. When we started the evening we'd start from one end of the band and just go along. The lead singer would change all the time. That's the first time that I actually managed to put it into a record. — Roy Wood
When I was a kid in the mid-'60s, I was what's known as a moddie boy, a prototype skinhead. You all had your hair like a crew cut, cropped, with suits or Levis with red suspenders, sometimes Doc Martens. It was a thriving soul music, Motown and ska scene; we used to dance to Prince Buster and the Skatalites. — Graham Parker
Remember Motown? Not just the driving music that swept the nation and the world, but the vibrant energy of the Motor City itself, symbolizing the heyday of America. Today, a derelict Detroit is testament to what America has squandered and what it has become. — Gerald Celente
I've discovered that Motown and Broadway have a lot in common - a family of wonderfully talented, passionate, hardworking young people, fiercely competitive but also full of love and appreciation for the work, for each other and for the people in the audience. — Berry Gordy
The Beatles were huge. And the first thing they said when you interviewed them, 'Oh yeah, we grew up on Motown.'..They were the first white act to admit they grew up listening to black music. — Smokey Robinson
I grew up not far from where Motown was founded, maybe 300 miles from Detroit and I've always liked - I used to like the way they made records. I still do, I just haven't had a chance to hear as much. They used to entertain me. — Rick Danko
I grew up around music. My father was a professional musician. We used to have a trailer house that we travelled in. I've always loved music. Started out loving to sing to the standards and songs of the early 50s, then that interest shifted to rock and roll, Motown, folk. — Timothy B. Schmit
I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house. — Jay-Z
I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don't care for the production much. — Jack White
My musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl. — Talib Kweli
I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing. — Siobhan Fahey
For me, the highlight was meeting all the Motown acts, as I adore black soul music. I met Stevie Wonder who I love, and Diana Ross And The Supremes. I also met The Carpenters. I was actually there in the studio when they recorded We've Only Just Begun. — Tony Blackburn
My tastes range all over the place, from vocal standards to Motown to 70s funk & soul to 80s pop to film scores to artists like R.E.M., Ben Folds, Prince, Annie Lennox, the Police, Elvis Costello, Cat Stevens, the Ditty Bops, local bands that friends of mine are in, and the list goes on... I have no single favorite genre or artist. — Stephanie D'Abruzzo
One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk. — Sufjan Stevens
I often call Daptone the Motown and Stax of today. But in some ways it's different. At Motown, a lot of the musicians didn't get recognized, music got stolen, and people didn't get paid. Or the label would just throw them a pinch of money for their songs. That is one thing we're not doing. Anything anyone writes here, we get a percentage. — Sharon Jones
I went from elementary school to proper training, operatic training, and I went on to the Motown University and learned a lot of things from some wonderful people. — Martha Reeves
I never went to the Beatles' concerts to scream. I never screamed at anybody's show. I was on my feet with the entire, all of the crowned heads of Motown, and we were shrieking our guts out. — Linda Ronstadt
I love Motown, that whole era. Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson. I just put on Pandora, and put it on Motown, and it makes me smile; makes me smile so much. — Tika Sumpter
A big part of the Motown formula was, they took music and turned it into this sort of automotive assembly line. They were cranking out 10 songs a day in that studio, or more. — Mayer Hawthorne
Rock and roll came in and changed my life and changed the whole music scene forever, and then I grew to love R&B and Motown and all black music, gospel music. But I never dismiss any form of music. I listen to everything. — Elton John
And for some reason, when I'm sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that's actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up. — Glen Hansard
Ali Woodson was one of the few Iconic Soul-Singers left from the Motown Era that could STILL sell out a crowd, light up a party, & make the women scream! Ali & I have loved, fought, flew & cruised these United States together. His raspy but golden tones will be missed but his music, acting & friendship will last in my heart 4-ever. — Luenell
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. — Dave Haywood
I love Motown, but I've obviously always been more of a Memphis soul fan. If it's Stax or Motown, I go Stax. — Justin Townes Earle
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music. — Smokey Robinson
I left Motown because of the regime of people who were there. — Smokey Robinson
When we were first started we were doing a lot of Motown stuff, but actually playing it more in a rock way. Everybody in the band sang and we did a lot of harmonies. — Roy Wood
Many of my friends were there at Motown. The studio was only a few blocks from where my dad's home was, where we lived. — Aretha Franklin
My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite. — Kanye West
There's no love in my songs. There's just a lot of resentment. Just bad attitude. But that's intentional, that's what I like. I love the whole idea of Motown. Their idea was to sing how down on their luck they were, but the song implied hope that it would get better. I liked that idea, and I wanted to go even further with it. — Memory Tapes
I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things. — Alex Winston
In Conclusion
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