A Quote by Richie Havens

I tended to listen to doo-wop, but my grandmother would always have the radio on all day and she'd start with Yiddish and then move on to gospel and later to "make believe" ballroom music. I got to hear all kinds of music and my mother would get up to go to work listening to country music. That was her alarm clock. My dad was a jazz lover and listened to the man who wrote "Misty", Errol Garner. He loved piano players, so I got to listen to that as well.
Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I'd listen to Italian music.
'Doo-wop' is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.
If I make a movie that has a whole bunch of music in it, I get to listen to the music all day long, and I don't have to say, 'Well, I gotta go back to work and I gotta stop listening to the music.' I get to listen to music and go to work.
I always loved soul music. My dad was a very religious guy, and we would listen to a lot of gospel and soul music. My college girlfriend introduced me to musicals. She listened to them, so that was the first time I heard 'Dream Girls.'
I always said I got my music from my dad, but my mom had these cassettes - Bjoerk and the Cocteau Twins and the Talking Heads. That was her music, and she would just get so wild and free when she listened to it.
When I was growing up, my dad would always be playing Motown around the house. He loved Stevie Wonder and the Supremes and got me into Dionne Warwick. It was the best music I'd ever heard. It was just that extremely deep, human, thought-out stream of ideas. You can always hear something new when you listen to that music.
I used to listen to so much doo-wop, and I've talked a lot about gospel music, but I realised a lot of that language came from doo-wop music. You know, "I Asked the Lord Above," "Heaven Sent Me an Angel." That's rock-'n-roll, and that's where a lot of this language is coming from. Also, I've said before that as soon as you start having a conversation with Jesus in a song you know you're dealing with issues of morality and how fragile it is to be human. It's a shortcut to putting those ideas across.
I think people assume that whatever kind of music you make is the music you listen to. Don't get me wrong, I listen to tons of pop music and all the music that really inspires Best Coast is very straightforward '50s and '60s pop music, but I've been listening to R&B and rap since I was a kid. I grew up in L.A. It's part of the culture. I listen to anything.
I got to where I couldn't listen to country radio. Country music is supposed to have steel and fiddle. When I hear country music, it should be country.
I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen to most is piano music from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Russian music in particular.
When I got this saxophone, it became a religion. There wasn't TV, there wasn't much money, and there was just a real dedication.... I never thought of it as an art. It was just work that I loved. Not just work, but work that I loved. I loved it so much, I would play it if nobody listened to it. Any jazz musician, if there's nobody around to listen, would play just for the sheer joy of improvising music.
My earliest memories of music are probably my dad listening to a bunch of outlaw country, but also old R&B and Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin. But, you know, I had rock phases and liked more modern R&B acts. I've always listened to all kinds of music, and I like all kinds of music.
I always loved music and would listen to the radio and watch out for new stuff. When I was about nine or ten, I would go around to me friend's house on a Sunday when the top twenty was broadcast on the radio at 6 P.M., and we would tape it on a cassette, and then we would take turns in sharing it over the next week.
Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.
My parents didn't have records, they didn't have radios, and they didn't listen to music. My grandmother was my main connection to art and music. She could play piano very well, and she had perfect pitch.
When I first got into the music scene, I was inspired by different songwriters. I like to dress from the '50s and '60s. I like to paint a picture of that era through my music and clothes. I am inspired by a whole a lot of things, from doo-wop to gospel and soul music.
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