P. J. Harvey Quotes

It's like there's the rest of the world, and then there's America. Part of the reason I would really love continue to making music over here because so much of American music has inspired me, whether it's Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen.

We had a really vast music collection and I was raised around rock'n'roll, it's just the way it was.

I grew up mostly with classical, big band, and a lot of Irish music - I really didn't start listening to rock and roll until I was maybe sixteen.

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.

But, I enjoy music from lots of people. And you also have to also remember that I grew up in a household where people like Fats Domino, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Earl Scruggs, and so many others were at mama's house. So, I heard everything growing up.

The music that I chose during my life, it wasn't arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn't heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn't do it authentically.

Many cities make music, but no city breathes music quite like Memphis. The songs and sounds that come from here are uniquely American.

Growing up with country, R&B, gospel, and classical music from my grandmother and pop, Tuskegee was the perfect melting pot for my influences as a writer.

Growing up, I was inspired by The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Damian Rice was a huge influence for me musically.

It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.

I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues.

There was always a lot of American music in England until, obviously when the Beatles came around, then there was a shift towards English music, but before then American music was the main thing.

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

Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Neil Young and Bob Dylan are my main influences.

I've always had a close connection to both rock and classical music.

In 1952, Muddy cut the song 'Rollin' Stone.' It was a nationwide success, and the song echoes down through rock n' roll history. Bob Dylan cut a tribute by the same name, an English band decided to call themselves the Rolling Stones, and the magazine that first embraced music as a serious cultural phenomenon was itself called 'Rolling Stone.'

I love the Beatles, and when I was very young, I had young parents, so Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles constantly were big influences on my life.

I love OneRepublic, The Script, All Time Low. I love pretty much every genre. I love the Rolling Stones and Elvis.

My first memories of music were country music and Ronnie Milsap. Where I grew up, it was what you listened to. And anything else, you were somewhat out of place.

As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

I'm from the Bob Wills and the Little Richard school of music. Bob Wills did what the hell he thought, Little Richard did what he thought, and those were my big influences.

I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.

When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.

The basis of everything that I plugged into when I was younger was blues, and it always stayed with me.

My dad has always been a big Ray Charles fan, and I've grown up listening to all kinds of music.