Top 45 Quotes & Sayings by Ahmet Ertegun

I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn't have the other $20,000.

There is a certain sort of excess that is interesting, don't you think? And America is, of course, the most excessive place.

As I grew up, I began to discover a little bit about the situation of black people in America and experienced an immediate empathy with the victims of such senseless discrimination. Because although the Turks were never slaves, they were regarded as enemies within Europe because of their Muslim beliefs.

My father was in Ataturk's closest group. They lived together during the War of Liberation in Turkey.

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.

You know what I'd really like to do? I'd like to record some white Chicago jazz.

I've lived very well all my life, even when I had no money, and there's very little I can't afford.

There's no place in the world you can go and not hear rock-and-roll, from Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder to Phil Collins.

America is remarkable, don't you think so? When I came to Washington, I was twelve years old. I spoke English with an English accent. It was assumed that it would go on in that way.

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.

When I first heard Ray Charles, he was a flop artist on a small label in California. He hadn't sold any records. And I bought his contract for $2,500.

I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.

Rock n' roll really belongs to all America. It really doesn't belong to one city.

Flashy people aren't everything, you know. Even when they have frizzled hair.

Jesse Stone did more to develop the basic rock-and-roll sound than anybody else.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.

Fifty years from now, people will still be listening to Led Zeppelin. They won't even remember me.

I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

It is very important that the world know that there have been 500 years of peaceful coexistence in Turkey between the Jews and Moslems.

I think it's better to burn out than to fade away... it's better to live out your days being very, very active - even if it destroys you - than to quietly... disappear.

Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music.

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his life's work.

If anybody asks me where I'm from, my first inclination is to say, 'Washington,' because that's where I grew up meaningfully.

I don't use the computer. But my secretary does. I want to take some computer courses because I'm interested in some of the access to some of the illegal things on the Internet. I'm just kidding.

My first wife was a theater person.

I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn't have the other $20,000. I should have gotten the Beatles. But one of my lawyers kind of messed up.

I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops.

I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging ... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.

I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi's apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized that she had a great pop voice, in the classical sense. Laura had an instinctive feel for music and melody, and her delivery was sensational. Everybody at Atlantic knew that we had a winner in this young lady, and she came through with great hits that will be remembered for many years to come. I consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly.

My father was a very religious person. And he prayed five times a day. And he did that throughout his relationship with Ataturk - at a time when it was very brave to do because Ataturk was cutting off the heads of the imams. And people thought that that was foolhardy of my father.

A singer's biographical film should have their music and their voice.

I became a jazz fan quite early and never went off the path thereafter.

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his lifes work.

My father believed very strongly in Ataturk. Ataturk was a very powerful man and a man of great vision.

There's been so much bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks.

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.

I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, every day, for about 40 years and it never occurred to me it'd kill me. If I'd have continued it might have killed me. My doctor said I should stick to wine.

The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution. Ataturk saw where history was going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915.

Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof.

The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair

There are still many great surviving talents: Stevie Winwood. Another great talent is Stevie Wonder. Another one is Eric Clapton. Another one is Phil Collins. Eminem, Kanye West I like all those people.

It is a great life, this life of music.

The all-time greatest Atlantic group - The Drifters

Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write - no matter how bad they are - get recorded.