J. D. Souther Quotes

I respected Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. Those were my heroes, and they were 10 years older than I was.

The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.

There were three great child singing stars: Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Jackie Washington.

There were a whole lot, I bought every blues record I could find, it wasn't just one or two people. My vocal influences were Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland.

I'm big fans of all those musicians, B.B. King, Mick Jagger - they're all on my iPod.

I've been influenced by so many great people, like Sam Moore, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, so many great blues and soul artists that I completely revere. So it's strange for me, actually, to hear somebody say, 'Oh, I was deeply influenced by your music.'

Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.

I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens.

Adele's voice is incredible. Chet Baker also has one of my favorite voices of all time, and so does Joni Mitchell. And Frank Black. Oh, and Stevie Nicks.

Elvis wore a halo. Otis Redding did, too. You knew you were playing with a star when you played with them.

My inspirations include the Beatles - love, love, love them - Elton John, Carole King, and Stevie Wonder.

I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.

I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.

A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music.

When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.

I like Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle. I would love to do songs with them.

I was heavily influenced by big voices when I was younger. People like Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Patti Labelle really spoke to me. When I got older, I was into Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and Lauryn Hill, but it wasn't until I started working with a voice coach that I really dove into jazz music.

If nothing else, we grew up loving the old blues artists and Ray Charles.

I always liked Nat King Cole. I always wanted to go my own way, but I always favoured other singers like Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald - I loved Ella Fitzgerald. There are so many of them. Nina Simone was one of my favourites - Johnny Mathis.

I go back to, like, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Elvis. I listen to everything.

I love the music from Nat King Cole, BB King, Albert King... When I think of it, I wouldn't mind being renamed Angus King.

I've been sampled at least 71 times. Me, James Brown and George Clinton, we're the ones who've been sampled the most.

In Malaysia, we have a lot of divas, like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey singers. And they were all so so talented, just very talented. For example, there's this one jazz singer, her name is Sheila Majid, and I was always singing her songs.

I've always been attracted to music, and women like Aretha Franklin, Beyonce, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Tina Turner showed the path, in a way. They're all tough women but not afraid to be vulnerable. They made me feel someone like me could do that.

I've loved Patti LaBelle since I was a little girl. I love her so much because she's spontaneous. I love Shirley Murdock, Keyshia Cole, Jazmine Sullivan and Tweet and Faith Evans. Faith's songs got me through a lot.