Cornel West Quotes

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices.

When I was a kid, I was following black soul music.

I've grown up on gospel and blues music, and now it's a huge part of who I am.

Anybody under the age of forty knows hip-hop, gospel and R&B pretty well, and it's all a part of what we consider to be 'black music.' There is a natural synergy between the three.

I've been getting into different gospel artists; Aretha Franklin is someone I've been listening to a lot of.

Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over.

Oh boy, I grew up hearing Sam Cooke, The Soul Stirrers, Mahalia Jackson, sitting on Mahalia Jackson's lap in my dad's church.

I prefer black music in general.

Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.

Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.

I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.

I need music. It's like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what's going on - bad games, press, whatever!

Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.

I was a big fan of black gospel. As a kid, there were black groups I sang with from my teen years to my early 20s.

I believe that blues and jazz are the two uniquely American contributions into music.

Soul music is pain - you can hear the slaves, the beatin' and the hurtin'.

Music will bring you through... It brought me through.

African-American music tends to have, at the very least, a glimmer of hope to it - sometimes full-fledged hope.

I think that's what it is with rock music. It helps you hang tough, I guess.

I was around a lot of gospel as a kid.

I think maybe the vehicle for me was 'Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits.' It has a song called, 'Touch the Hem of His Garment.' Do you know that song? I kind of got obsessed with that song and started exploring and getting more of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers and really getting into that super, super deeply.