A Quote by Little Richard

When you sit down and think about what rock 'n' roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock 'n' roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues.

Little Richard

Quote Topics

About Blues Call Change Down Down And Music Played Question Really Regular Rhythm Rhythm And Blues Rock Roll Sit Tempo Then Think Up

Quote Author

Little Richard
American - Musician
December 5, 1932 - May 9, 2020

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. What we're trying to do is play rock 'n' roll, but other people call it different things.

David Johansen

No matter what though, there's always rock & roll. There's rock 'n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock & roll in pop music, there's rock 'n' roll in soul, there's rock 'n' roll in country. When you see people dress and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock & roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star.

John Varvatos

There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock n' roll in soul, there's rock n' roll in country. When you see people dress, and their style has an edge to it, that rebellious edge that bubbles up in every genre, that's rock n' roll. Everybody still wants to be a rock star, you know?

John Varvatos

Rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll isn't even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit that's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop.

MC Ren

That's what Tina Turner did, too - sang blues up-tempo - and they called it rock 'n' roll.

Little Richard

I have absolutely no interest in rock and roll. I'm just being David Bowie. Mick Jagger is rock and roll. I mean, I go out and my music is roughly the format of rock and roll, I use the chord changes of rock and roll, but I don't feel I'm a rock and roll artist. I'd be a terrible rock artist, absolutely ghastly.

David Bowie

Originally, what we call rock 'n' roll was nothing more than an attempt of very bad white performers to sound like black rhythm-and-blues performers. They did their best to emulate, they did their best to paraphrase. And that started what later became rock 'n' roll.

Frank Sinatra Jr.

Good rock 'n' roll is something that makes you feel alive. It's something that's human, and I think that most music today isn't. ... To me good rock 'n' roll also encompasses other things, like Hank Williams and Charlie Mingus and a lot of things that aren't strictly defined as rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.

Lester Bangs

Rock 'n' roll guitar came from blues guitar. It was the blues guys who first turned the amp up and started whacking on the Stratocaster and a Les Paul. It wasn't the country guys and it wasn't the white guys; it was the Blues guys. That's where the real fire is in all of this rock and roll music.

Steve Miller

Rock'n'roll is nothing but Boogie Woogie with stuff on top of it. And if you're black, they name it rhythm'n'blues, and if you're white, they name it rock'n'roll. So, I don't give a... You know.

Ike Turner

For guitar players especially, blues is the foundation of rock and roll. You take country music and rock and roll and jazz and you mix it together, and that's my basic makeup.

Steve Miller

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it. If you were going to give Rock 'n' Roll another name you might as well call it Chuck Berry. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - Rock and Roll or Christianity.

John Lennon

Blues is a big part of rock and roll. The best rock and roll got its birth in the blues. You hear it in Little Richard and Chuck Berry.

Angus Young

Teenagers did not have, before rock 'n' roll and rhythm-and-blues - they did not have any type of music they could call their own once they got over 4 or 5 years old until they were well into their 20's and considered adults.

Sam Phillips

Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy.