Top 26 Quotes & Sayings by Solomon Burke

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Solomon Burke.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Solomon Burke

Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke was an American singer who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s. He has been called "a key transitional figure bridging R&B and soul", and was known for his "prodigious output".

I was signed to MGM. I was in Vegas for sixteen weeks at the Sands Hotel.
Sometimes its controversy, but we all have our choices that we make.
I should have my own publishing companies. — © Solomon Burke
I should have my own publishing companies.
If we could buy these properties and then invest in the Black community, with our own McDonald's, with our own Kentucky Fried Chickens, it was gonna be a great move.
I didn't need to borrow money from the record company, because if I had my own publishing company, and I had my own writers, I'd have enough to get and do whatever I wanted to do.
That was my choice at that time, and I still say Nixon was a great president. A very beautiful and wise man.
I want to be a soul singer.
I didn't do the marching down the streets, jumping in front of the lines and holding hands... that wasn't me.
The secret was to just be cool, stay in God's graces, and work it out.
Apollo Records signed me for my gospel ability.
The deals that were made for Black artists at that time were not the deals that were made for white artists.
I'm still amazed people remembered and didn't give up on me.
We were using the record as a tool to invest money into real estate all through the South, because we were living in an era where the South was changing.
My manager was Buddy Glee, who put me together with Mike Curb, and was basically the idea to bring some soul to the label and bring something different to the label besides the Hank Williams situation.
But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do.
You gotta do it with class and integrity. If not, you're gonna drag yourself through the mud.
Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.
I don't need to make a fortune, I need to survive.
As you grow older, you learn to understand life a little better.
We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.
We were grooving, at that point, in the same direction, but remember, Roy Hamilton and myself were going into a path and a direction that had no programming. — © Solomon Burke
We were grooving, at that point, in the same direction, but remember, Roy Hamilton and myself were going into a path and a direction that had no programming.
I walked out of the Chinese restaurant with a fat check, a record deal, and a box of shrimp egg foo yung!
I didn't need to depend on the record company to publish my records.
Im still amazed people remembered and didnt give up on me.
Girls were coming from every angle. I couldn't love them all. But I tried.
If one of us is chained, none of us are free...
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