American Quotes

When I got involved with The Five Crowns who later became The Drifters, and we got this hit record, I still was looking at this as kind of a fun thing.

We were doing things with a hundred per cent feeling. It wasn't programmed. It wasn't asked for. It wasn't structured. It was just there. It was very raw. I don't think the industry would allow that to happen again.

Those things don't happen today. I feel sorry for the kids in the industry today. They have on sunglasses, eat caviar in jet planes, but they'll never know the true feeling that we did.

The Phil Spector that I would meet has always been a nice, quiet, little guy who's very serious about his work; obviously you can tell that because each and everything he's ever done has always been charted.

The movie is actually from a book by Stephen King called The Body. When they were gonna put it to a motion picture, they found the story was a bit too strong for the title The Body, based on a young kid's movie. It would be too heavy.

The industry now wants to be in charge of everything.

One of the members of the group, I can't remember which one, found out we were making $3 - $5,000 a night. We were getting a hundred dollars a week a piece. Everybody got upset about it.

One minute we can be in a small club, the next minute we can be in a coliseum, and the next minute we can be in a small auditorium. It varies, depending on the promoter, the budget, and the travelling distance.

Of course, the kids who had never heard of a person called Ben E. King were then aware of the name associated with the song. That gave a tremendous lift to me as an artist.

Many times I've gone on tours with Paul Anka. He would have someone sitting behind him to keep people from even talking to him. You were almost in a little restricted area there.

It would probably take me an hour to two to write it down, get the feel of it, and that's with quite a few changes. It's not really a hard thing for me to do.

It never dawned on me at any particular time of my life that people are paid tremendous money to sing.

It doesn't take me long to write songs.

If there's anything about the business that I love and that I'm extremely happy about, is that my career started at that time and that I met some of the greatest entertainers at that time and some are still here.

I never even visualized for a second doing what I'm doing.

I do like what Alicia Keys and John Legend are doing. With their music, you keep your clothes on.

I do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.

He was a manager, one of the singers, I guess talent coordinator for the local talent in Harlem. His name was Lover Patterson. He was living right across the street from where my dad had his restaurant. I guess he saw a lot of kids come in, a lot of my buddies.

At that time, we were in charge. We didn't ask. We just did. We just did what was in our heart.

And, because there was an honesty about all that was going on. It connected with the people in the street.

I still think my whole career was accidental. I didn't pursue it. I feel like I'm cheating sometimes.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.

There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven't yet done.

The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I'll keep playing until I feel like I can't.

Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin', too.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you're going to the bank to borrow money.

If you can't get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.

I've been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.