Joe Bonamassa Quotes

In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.

Someone like Jay-Z does have a timeless quality, but it's much different than ours. You can look back at something like "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors or the music that was on American Bandstand in the 1950s-'60s.

I like classical music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and I adore Bach above all.

I still the love classic period, but also the baroque period, and even 17th-Century music such as the music of Monteverdi. He's one of the greatest opera composers. He was the one who really started the opera.

I've always been heavily influenced by classical music, mostly by baroque music.

If you look back, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven were mixing music and humor all the time.

I played a lot of Bach's partitas and sonatas; I like the way that Bach was abstracting already from these dance forms.

I would still love to do more Handel. I think Handel was a fantastic composer. I did lots of Vivaldi, but it's also important to do the music of Handel, one of the greatest composers of the 18th century.

Probably the most reliable comfort music for me over the years has been Bach.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

Twenty years from now, will we listen to Lady Gaga? No. She might think she is making a stand for the freaks and the weirdos. But they're not going to have any decent music to play, are they?

I love the history of popular music. I love to know what people are listening to, even if I don't like it.

I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine.

Rock in the mainstream culture has lost a lot of its mojo.

For my group of friends is Lady Gaga eye-opening? No. She's a less dangerous version of what was so cool about pop culture in the '80s. Back then it was so gay and so punk in so many ways.

The first choral music I remember hearing was Handel's 'Messiah' when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast it over the radio.

The No. 1 quote critics give me is, 'Thom, your work is irrelevant.' Now, that's a fascinating, fascinating comment. Yes, irrelevant to the little subculture, this microculture, of modern art. But here's the point: My art is relevant because it's relevant to 10 million people. That makes me the most relevant artist in this culture.

My music was typically continental - nothing like, say, The Beatles.

Trying to write music that's sensitive to 400 years ago takes a bit of madness, as it's such a long stretch of time.

I used to love Bach.

All the classical genres are now ridiculous in their rigorous purity.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

I think I've learned more about Baroque music than any other genre.

In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form.

Dance music has pushed its way into the mainstream. Which is good for me.