116 Rhythm And Blues Quotes

Following is our list of rhythm and blues quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about jazz and blues.

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Famous Rhythm And Blues Quotes

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

Rhythm is our universal mother tongue. It's the language of the soul. — Gabrielle Roth

The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll. - Muddy Waters

The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll. — Muddy Waters

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

Where I come from we say that rhythm is the soul of life, because the whole universe revolves around rhythm, and when we get out of rhythm, that’s when we get into trouble. — Babatunde Olatunji

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul - Plato

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul — Plato

Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm. — Jelly Roll Morton

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

I'd like to do a pop album with an R and B influence. I definitely want to have those big ballads with the uptempo hits as well. — Pia Toscano

Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality. — Edith Sitwell

I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well. — Haley Reinhart

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it, you have it all over. — Elvis Presley

I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base. — Greg Lake

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

The blues is a mighty long road. Or it could be a river, one that twists and turns and flows into a sea of limitless musical potential. — Billy Gibbons

Short Rhythm And Blues Quotes

  • It's gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me. — Chuck Berry
  • Sounds like the blues are composed of feeling, finesse, and fear. — Billy Gibbons
  • Ragtime was my lullaby. — Hoagy Carmichael
  • Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow. — Nina Simone
  • Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say. — Mahalia Jackson
  • Text first, rhythm second, melody third. — Claudio Monteverdi
  • Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. — Maya Angelou
  • The blues will always be because the blues are the roots of all American music. — Willie Dixon

Rhythm And Blues Image Quotes

Rhythm and blues quote If i don't have red, I use blue.
If i don't have red, I use blue.

Blues Music Quotes

Music means communication to me. I say 'listen you people out there, listen to my music, let's be one.' Music is a friend to me when I am lonely, when I am blue. You can't define music 'cause music is cosmos and it knows no barrier or definition. You have to feel music to dig it. — Robert Plant

The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning. - John Lee Hooker

The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning. — John Lee Hooker

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music. — Keith Richards

Rhythm and blues quote There is a big blue sky waiting just behind the clouds.
There is a big blue sky waiting just behind the clouds.

With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues. — Brian Setzer

I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Robert Johnson, it blew my mind. It was something I'd been missing my whole life. That music made me discard everything else and just get down to the soul and honesty of the blues. — Jack White

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

They say the blues is sad, but when B.B. sings 'I got a sweet little angel, I love the way she spreads her wings,' that don't sound too sad to me! — Buddy Guy

The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Imamu Amiri Baraka Jones

With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. We did not want to come off like white kids trying to play black music from 100 years ago so a great way to distract them was by dressing in red, white and black. — Jack White

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

Jazz And Blues Quotes

The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Amiri Baraka

My baby lives in shades of blue, blue eyes and jazz and attitude. - Lana Del Rey

My baby lives in shades of blue, blue eyes and jazz and attitude. — Lana Del Rey

The whole of life itself expresses the blues. That's why I always say the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding. The blues can be about anything pertaining to the facts of life. The blues call on God as much as a spiritual song do. — Willie Dixon

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat. — Carmen McRae

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues. — Luther Allison

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. — Ornette Coleman

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues. — Mose Allison

My father's rich, my momma's good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I've never suffered and don't intend to suffer. — Miles Davis

When I die, I want them to play The Black and Crazy Blues, I want to be cremated, put in a bag of pot and I want beautiful people to smoke me and hope they got something out of it. — Rahsaan Roland Kirk

I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I'm still and quiet inside, I'll begin. It's very personal; it has to be. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece. — Bobby McFerrin

Chicago Blues Quotes

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

And I come here as a daughter, raised on the South Side of Chicago - by a father who was a blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me. — Michelle Obama

I love songs, and I love songwriting, and there's a standard of songwriting within Chicago blues in particular. I don't like the sad blues, necessarily; the Chicago blues is what I like, which is the kind of blues you can dance to. — Sinead O'Connor

For me, jazz, R&B, jump swing, Chicago blues, country blues, early hillbilly music, and honky tonk all stem from the same source — Duke Robillard

It was Muddy Waters who took the Delta blues north to Chicago, electrified the sound, and changed the course of popular music as we know it. That's pretty much the judgment of history, and it is mine as well. — Tim Cahill

There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money. — Muddy Waters

When I think about a Chicago sound, I think about the Great Migration from the South. Many of Chicago's black artists are from Mississippi, Arkansas, and with them was brought blues and gospel music. — Rhymefest

R&B is everything. Hip Hop, Soul, Gospel and Classical Blues are everything. All of that makes sense in BJ The Chicago Kid and what we do. — B.J. The Chicago Kid

I listen to, like, funky Chicago blues. I love blues, but I love the funky, happy blues. There's a song about pretty much everything, including kidney stones, believe it or not. So there's something there for whatever you happen to be suffering, you know? — Sinead O'Connor

I think of rock 'n' roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop. — Bob Dylan

Rock And Roll Music Quotes

A kid once said to me "Do you get hangovers?" I said, "To get hangovers you have to stop drinking. — Lemmy Kilmister

Rock and roll is about having a good time, so no matter where you are right now blast some music and forget about lifes problems. — Andy Biersack

When I was a kid, I was told rock n' roll wasn't music. It wasn't art. Queen was my proof, my evidence, that these people were wrong - and they meant everything to me. — Axl Rose

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms. — Salman Rushdie

Rock music is important to people , because it allows them to escape this crazy world. It allows them not to run away from the problems that are there, but to face up to them , but at the same time sort of DANCE ALL OVER THEM. That's what rock and roll is about. — Pete Townshend

The music I like to play is Rock 'N Roll. I like to rock like a wild animal. I like to rock it well enough to whip a yak's ass. I love to rock it good on a horse's ass. I like to rock it real hard. I love to rock it all the way to Russia. I like to kick out the Jazz and kick it out all the way. — Wesley Willis

Remember when you used to watch TV in the Sixties and you'd see Perry Como in a cashmere sweater? That's what rock 'n' roll is becoming. It's your parents' music. — Neil Young

Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy. — Joan Jett

Rock and roll is a music, and why should a music contribute to ... juvenile delinquency? If people are going to be juvenile delinquents, they're going to be delinquents if they hear ... Mother Goose rhymes. — Elvis Presley

I mean, there's times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music. — Graham Nash

Rock-n-roll Quotes

Well, I wouldn't want to say that I started it (rock 'n' roll), but I don't remember anyone else before me playing that kind of stuff. — Fats Domino

Life sucks, but in a beautiful kind of way. - Axl Rose

Life sucks, but in a beautiful kind of way. — Axl Rose

I'm not God but if I were God, ¾ of you would be girls, and the rest would be pizza and beer. — Axl Rose

The only negative thing about murder is that when you kills someone they can no longer suffer — Varg Vikernes

Life is beautiful. Be thankful for everything. Destroy your ego. Free hugs. Sing your hearts out in the street. Rock ‘n roll. — Ariana Grande

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture. — Thelonious Monk

My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity. — Eric Clapton

One time we saw some hookers but when we got closer we realized it was Motley Crue. — James Hetfield

I am like the little rock n' roll backseat driver. - Nina Blackwood

I am like the little rock n' roll backseat driver. — Nina Blackwood

It's boring to be 70, I don't want to be there, I'll be dead and gone, I don't have any aspirations to be 70. — Freddie Mercury

People Writing About Rhythm And Blues

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry
quotes on life, music and education

51 1164
Read quotes by Billy Gibbons

Billy Gibbons
quotes on life, music and love

38 366
Read quotes by Jackie DeShannon

Jackie DeShannon
quotes on education, music and love

28 96
Read quotes by Gabrielle Roth

Gabrielle Roth
quotes on life, love and education

60 2986
Read quotes by Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters
quotes on life, education and love

40 398
Read quotes by Plato

Plato
quotes on life, love and reality

945 13426

More Rhythm And Blues Quotes

Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It's the rhythm that gets to the kids – they're starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners. — Alan Freed

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

Rock'n'roll is nothing but Boogie Woogie with stuff on top of it. And if you're black, they name it rhythm'n'blues, and if you're white, they name it rock'n'roll. So, I don't give a... You know. — Ike Turner

I invented the colors of the vowels!--A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green--I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses. — Arthur Rimbaud

Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it. — Ray Charles

Bill Monroe spoke of bringing 'ancient tones' into his music with echoes of British and Irish fiddle and bagpipe music, while also delving deeply into American blues, gospel, folk hymnody, and hill country dance music. To that gumbo, he added the invigorating rhythms and harmonies of hot jazz. It was a new kind of American music, named in honor of his band The Blue Grass Boys to be known, simply, as bluegrass. — Paul Zollo

We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer's job is to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues. — Anne Lamott

Isn't my music the last of the real rhythm and blues? Isn't it great? It's because of my musicians, we were weaned on Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, all the founding fathers, the gods of thunder, who invented the foundation and the pulse of the greatest music in the world! — Ted Nugent

My brother Alex fell in love with rhythm and blues early and gave me a strong dose of it. — James Taylor

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

Depending on who I am talking about or who's talking through me - if the person is a kind of hip-hop, or rhythm and blues person, or if the person is a kind of old-fashion gothic, meaning gothic attitude, then that will determine what form the poem will take. — Maya Angelou

The music I really like to get off on is the old rhythm 'n' blues and rock 'n' roll stuff... that's what I really dig. And I also dig to sing ballads as well. And I also dig writing my own songs. I was just trying to find a way of integrating the whole thing, taking a look at the total picture. — Van Morrison

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

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

I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best - of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything. — Maya Angelou

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

Finding out that Ray Charles sang country songs but it sounded as soulful as any rhythm and blues record that kind of opened up my horizons for what songwriting was and what singers I could listen to. — Michael Kiwanuka

I remember listening to like gospel-y blues tunes. I'd just listen to the rhythm and the music was upbeat. Always upbeat if you get like a good rhythm you can nod your head. You just feel good. But then when you listen to the lyrics it was quite sad. — Michael Kiwanuka

I am so weak over love and heartbreak. My music is rhythm and blues and with that said, the blues element of it is a major portion. I feel like it has been lost in R&B and a lot of people are scared to talk about their vulnerabilities and insecurities. They want to keep it up and in the club. — Adrian Marcel

My voice is my gift. And Pops had me using it in the right way. I had many offers to sing pop, to sing rhythm and blues. Pops said "Mavis, this record company want to give you a million dollars." I said, "No daddy, I want to sing with the family." And I did. I never wanted to branch out by myself. But I've had to now. It's my mission. I've been left here to do it. And I'm grateful. — Mavis Staples

I know whites buy more records than blacks. So, I wanted to be able to make the most money that I could. Pop is for both whites and blacks, but if I just stuck to rhythm and blues, it's mostly for blacks. I didn't want to do that. So like I said, I wanted to get the most out of it that I could, so I thought that pop was the way to go. — L.C. Cooke

I wasn't popular in school, I was Mexican, I was all these inappropriate things. I started playing the ukulele and taking it to school, and I realized people liked listening to it. I would play it to comfort myself at home, and I'd play rhythm and blues songs that had four chords. That's how it started. — Joan Baez

When I started off in Wales, I sang and accompanied myself with guitar in the '50s. And then I got a band together, which is a rhythm section, really. I used to do a lot of blues, and rhythm and blues, and '50s rock 'n' roll and country, and all kinds of stuff. — Tom Jones

The fact I wasn't getting off made me realize that I really had to take a hard look at it and at the type of music that I played, which ranges from ballads to country type stuff to rock and rhythm 'n' blues. It takes in a wider spectrum. — Van Morrison

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 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

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

I'm singing the way that I love to sing, which is like old soul, like old Al Green. I grew up about an hour from Memphis. So all that music that I grew up with - the Stax music and early rhythm n' blues - I'm doing that. I'm actually getting out from behind my guitar and I'm singing. — Sheryl Crow

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

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

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

Charlie Patton, who was born in 1891, recorded some of the very first blues. In 'Pony Blues' and 'Peavine Blues,' he manages to pile dense layers of rhythms one upon the other. — Tim Cahill

At Carnegie Hall the Preservation Hall Jazz Band showed how easily it could hop from era to era. It could work like a rhythm-and-blues horn section or a tightly arranged little big band if need be, but it could also switch back into the polyphonic glories of vintage New Orleans jazz, in which nearly every instrument seems to improvise around the tune at the same time. — Jon Pareles

I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music. I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock'n roll. — Adrian Mitchell

There would be no rock and roll or rhythm and blues without Leo Fenders' contribution ... the tone is everything — Bonnie Raitt

Our radio plays rhythm and blues as we pass the joint back and forth in jutjawed silence both looking ahead with big private thoughts now so vast we can't communicate them anymore and if we tried it would take a million years and a billion books - Too late, too late, the history of everything we've seen together and separately has become a library in itself - The shelves pile higher - They're full of misty documents or documents of the Mist-. — Jack Kerouac

The yellow-blue contrast present at sunrise and orange-blue at sunset = the optimal stimulus for setting your circadian rhythm for quality sleep and daytime mood, focus — Andrew Huberman

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