Leon Bridges Quotes

I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.

I started with Sam Cooke when I was 6 or 7 years old.

People love talking about when they were young and heard Honky Tonk Women for the first time. It's quite a heavy load to carry on your shoulders, the memories of so many people.

I remember, when I was a kid, listening to the radio and hearing 'Big Bad John' by Jimmy Dean - and it just blew me away. I used to sit there and call the radio stations and request that song. And then the Beatles were obviously out already, but I really didn't know about the Beatles.

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

Right from the first time we went to America in 1968, Led Zeppelin was a word-of-mouth thing. You can't really compare it to how it is today.

I remember the first time I received a cassette tape of a band called The Clash. I became an instant fan of the Clash and then bought their albums after that and went to their concerts and gave them my money... but I first got it for free.

I grew up listening to Jay-Z, and I think the first time I really became obsessed with learning and thinking about lyrics was when I started listening to rap; I was 11, 12, and started becoming aware of music beyond the familiar.

I grew up loving classic rock music - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones - and then one day I heard 'Baby One More Time' on the radio and I thought 'What is this?' I was eight and it changed my life.

Soul lyrics, soul music came at about the same time as the civil rights movement, and it's very possible that one influenced the other.

The first time I heard The Beatles, I cried. It was 'Let it Be'.

I honed in on a great time, the Motown era, the '60s and '70s. That type of music has always been a staple in my life.

I've always been a big fan of the American soul sound.

I've got a good memory. Sometimes it's a curse. I remember what the light was like in the room the first time I heard Van Morrison's 'Moondance.'

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.

I remember singing around the house to records that were playing. All kinds of music. And the great James Cleveland was often in our house, and I grew up with his sound as well.

I remember the first time somebody played me Janis Joplin. My friend Donna put on Janis Joplin, and she said, 'You're like her.' At the time, I wasn't even a singer; I was a drummer. I just wanted to play the drums.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band - or at least in a Pixies cover band.

I wear jeans and a T-shirt sometimes. I just like clothes - since the first time I can remember, like age ten or eleven; I was just obsessed with music and clothes. Just like a lot of people in England from my generation.

Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me. He left the gospel field at one point and went into the secular, and he had this huge hit, 'You Send Me.' Irma, my older sister, and I heard 'You Send Me' on the radio while we were driving through the South one night. We had to stop the car. We got out and danced around the car out on the highway.

My brothers and I had a gospel quartet, and that was the only music people listened to. But I was already gravitating towards songs by Sam Cooke, and then one day I put on a Jackie Wilson record, and baby, I was thrown right out of the house.

My parents' record collection was the music I was hearing as long as I can remember, and I would play Otis Redding over and over again.

The day I heard Hank Williams for the first time, my life changed.

There's so many influential albums my parents would put on. Like the first album I ever heard was 'Help!' by the Beatles and from there I just loved rock music.