Quotes About Great Musicians

#1. I think it's a shame when you come across young actors and musicians who haven't had the time to learn their craft. It doesn't matter if it's acting or music; you really have to learn how to do it from the bottom up because unless you have a great work ethic ... fame is a terrible thing to have.

Denis Leary

#2. A lot of young musicians get the money at the wrong time. They get it for something they don't feel great about, and it'll make you feel so bad it'll destroy you and kill you.

Iggy Pop

#3. Growing around great musicians, you just can't help it. I identified with it immediately. It was something that was so natural to me that when I started singing, it was almost like speaking.

Whitney Houston

#4. My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew.

Alan Arkin

#5. I'm not a great inventor from scratch. What I do is to use, steal, acquire, reproduce or re-cycle music from other musicians.

Michael Nyman

#6. Great music seems to come from a lot of angst, and that angst is from great musicians getting together with intense chemistry. When that chemistry isn't there, people tend not to write great music.

Peter Hook

#7. I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art.

Serj Tankian

#8. That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.

Al Jarreau

#9. I know a lot of great musicians that don't know they're even great, because mangers try and make them feel belittled like they're not worth a crap.

Jim "Dandy" Mangrum

#10. The new king [Alexander the Great] should perform acts so important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat to describe and celebrate him.

Plutarch

#11. This weird thing that musicians have ... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid.

Glen Hansard

#12. I come from a town of great musicians: Washington, D.C. It's no joke, that history.

Henry Rollins

#13. U2 are a great band; they've given us an unbelievable body of work, and all of us musicians owe them at least something. I can honestly say that every time I have played the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, as soon as my drums are set up, I go into the beat of 'Sunday Bloody Sunday.'

Jimmy Chamberlin

#14. It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians.

Dan Fogelberg

#15. Some musicians are not great technicians, but they give you a rich point of view.

Nathan Milstein

#16. I basically taught myself how to sing and play by copying records, and that's just how it was for me. I know that's true for a lot of budding musicians out there - that's the thing that gets them inspired, is trying to learn their favorite songs. I think it's a great way to teach yourself.

Susanna Hoffs

#17. I love music and I love musicians and when I hear something that's great, I always say it's like you go to a movie and you can't wait to tell your friends about it.

Zach Braff

#18. The first impulse of a great number of civilized musicians ... is to protest ourdeclaration that the music in Hungary belongs to the Gypsies.

Franz Liszt

#19. I didn't want to be precious about things. Of course, the idea is to make great music, but if you have great musicians up there, it gives me some leeway to play around a little bit.

Fiona Apple

#20. I've been asked why does Ireland produce so many great musicians, and the answer is it doesn't. When you count the great musicians Ireland has given the world in the last 20 years, you can do it on one hand.

Roddy Doyle

#21. Not only did I get to play with these great international musicians, but I also had the opportunity to jam with the local celebrities in Toronto, people like the Walsh Brothers, David Wilcox, Kim Mitchell and the like. It was a great learning experience.

Jeff Healey

#22. I don't think successful musicians were really put on this planet in order to have a great time, pat themselves on the back and say, 'Oh, what a clever boy I am!' I think that, like most artists, we were put on the planet to suffer just a little. And we do.

Ian Anderson

#23. Jonny Lang has the power to move the music into the next millennium by reaching the ears of a new generation. The great musicians have the power to break all of the 'isms'-race, age, sex, et cetera. Jonny Lang is one of those musicians.

Luther Allison

#24. What separates great jazz musicians from average ones is Taste. Those who have taste consistently choose notes, tempos, timbres and voicings that seduce and satisfy attentive listeners.

Marc Myers

#25. I wish I played guitar so I could start a band with great musicians.

Diplo

#26. I'm in awe of people like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard; they're great musicians and people. But I'm most starstruck by people in the small town where I live. Especially single dads, like me, who are working five times as hard to raise their kids.

Kid Rock

#27. I've followed the lives of great musicians and have learned that you don't have to always write in pain. You have all of your past experiences, feelings, and thoughts that you can turn on when you need them and turn off when you don't.

Kaki King

#28. That's one of the things about being married to a couple of musicians, I have got great iPods. That's what I was left with
an iPod each.

Pamela Anderson

#29. Great stories, well written and heartfelt. Prisoner of SouthernRock is an engaging and entertaining celebration of southern music, musicians and characters.

Chuck Leavell

#30. There's a lot of integrity with musicians; you really still aspire to grow, and be great, to be the best version of yourself you can be.

Sheryl Crow

#31. When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you ... their spirits are walking around in me, so they're still here and passing it on to others.

Miles Davis

#32. I guess I've never been introduced properly to Pink Floyd. I know they're great, don't get me wrong. Excellent, excellent musicians; great band; awesome harmony; great song writers; I just don't know anything besides, I guess, the popular songs on the radio.

Phil Anselmo

#33. I believe, from reading biographies, that the great musicians have also been great cooks: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach. I think I've worked out why this is - unsociable hours, plus general creativity.

Jamie Cullum

#34. I've been collaborating with Ira Schickman on some songs, and there will be many other, great musicians involved.

Chaka Khan

#35. Be good to people. Be good to every single person you come into contact with. My best friends are great musicians. But more than that, they're great people.

Taylor Swift

#36. I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

Charlie Haden

#37. Musicians coming together at a time of need is one of the great traditions in this country. It's like people taking charge.

Mark O'Connor

#38. Maybe not as an idol, but I have influenced some people, including my son Joshua. So that feels good. Wherever I play musicians come to meet me, that is a great compliment to me. I am honored.

Dewey Redman

#39. There are so many great players walking the planet but it is rare to find musicians that can live life together in a way that isn't ego centric. For whatever reason, musicians are just bizarrely composed humans. I think I'm living in the middle of a miracle.

Crowder

#40. How great musicians demonstrate a mutual respect and trust on the bandstand can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life, understanding what it means to be a global citizen in the most modern sense.

Wynton Marsalis

#41. Surrounding myself with people I enjoy being with made the sessions effortless. Everyone came prepared and ready to play. All were great musicians and they came to the studio to give everything they had.

Stanley Clarke

#42. I'm a great songwriter, but I'm not the most talented musician.

Noel Gallagher

#43. I enjoyed living in New York City, I liked the premise of the show [ Saturday Night Live], I liked working with a different host every week and different musicians. I always thought, "This is great. I never expected to get this in the first place, so I'm just happy being here."

Kevin Nealon

#44. Under Thatcher, who ruled us with an iron rod, great art was made. Amazing designers and musicians. Acid house was born. Very colourful and progressive.

Noel Gallagher

#45. I did a concert ... in September with the Berlin Philharmonic ... They're great musicians, and there's always something to learn from them.

Cecilia Bartoli

#46. I have learned that collaboration are everything to me. Music is a social thing. If there are no ears to hear it, it has no value. I have really loved getting input from other great musicians- like recording strings with my family or making weird synth sounds with tore nissen.

Oh Land

#47. I'm always going to get more of a charge playing Chicago than I will Duluth or some place like that. Just because of the history and the people there are way more knowledgeable than a lot of other cities. It's an amazing music scene with some great bands and great musicians.

Matt Cameron

#48. Musicians play music because you love ... I loved to play drums since I was five. It's all I ever wanted to do. Rock stars, or as we call them, posers, guys who want to just look great, dress great. They're not musicians; they're looking for the fame.

Peter Criss

#49. I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so it's difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels.

Nigel Kennedy

#50. When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes. It comes down to people's personalities and individual energies.

Cass McCombs

#51. Musicians are so well covered in the press, it would be great to see more outspoken practitioners of green life.

Jason Mraz

#52. As an artist, I feel so fortunate to be able to learn from all these great musicians that came before me, when some people have nobody that came before them.

Kiesza

#53. The great musicians are those who can reach people, who can make people feel something.

Sam Rivers

#54. 'Instagram' is great if you want to share photos, but you're not that technical. Or, if you're not interested in sharing publicly, 'Instagram' becomes a place where you can not only consume photos and videos from musicians, or whoever, but send them directly to your friends.

Kevin Systrom

#55. People need to put my music in a perspective where they use other established artists from the past, and almost all the names I see related to my music are great musicians.

Sondre Lerche

#56. Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like.

John Zorn

#57. I pride myself on working with great musicians.

Prince

#58. Most true musicians don't do it for the money, they do it because they love it. When I did slam poetry, it was a great way for me to express myself, I loved it.

Jake Holmes

#59. Yeah, we try to get the best musicians possible, and Justin [Robinson] is a great musician, man, a great player. You must have been surprised to see him out there, then.

Common

#60. I enjoy reading about the lives of musicians, and find many similarities in their ideas of preparation and their utter devotion to this great, eternal language: music.

Jessye Norman

#61. My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances; we've become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.

Alexander McCall Smith

#62. Just because you put super great musicians together, it doesn't mean you're going to have that chemistry as a band.

Brian Setzer

#63. I think that what trips up a lot of great musicians is that they become involved with too many things that aren't where their strengths lie.

Will Oldham

#64. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side.

Steve Jobs

#65. As I grew up, I wasn't a great buyer of albums, but I really liked 'The Jam.' I like good musicians and loved the energy of their songs.

Anton Du Beke

#66. It's great to have all this stuff at home. But when you want to make it for real, there's still nothing like making music with a bunch of other great musicians in the same room. That's one thing that'll never change.

Ronnie Milsap

#67. My family is full of musicians, and a couple of times a year we get together and jam at my cousin's studio. We improvise and have a great time.

Gabriel Macht

#68. A lot of the people that I photograph are master musicians themselves, whether they're singers or great jazz players and it's kind of fun to figure out who they came up with and who they emulated or who they idolized actually.

Carol Friedman

#69. For about seven years. I really like it there. There are a lot of great musicians. The scene is very open. A lot of stuff going on. People's ears are really open, they are not closed. A lot of scenes here, people just get tunnel vision and are into one thing.

John Zorn

#70. Yes, but the great thing about all the people - and I don't think there is any exception - who I've worked with is they've all been very, very talented musicians.

Joan Armatrading

#71. The black hole in democracy is integrity. The great unspoken is integrity. When integrity is not first and foremost, it's quite palpable but not visible. It's always there. Jazz highlights it because musicians and jazz always represented a high level of integrity.

Wynton Marsalis

#72. The biggest reward from that record was the enthusiasm everyone had to sing on it. The Grammy nominations and the chart positions are great, but ultimately the way you interact with other musicians is the most important thing to me.

Chris Botti

#73. I have seen so many bands and musicians fade away, especially the ones in my early days that treated me and my bands with contempt for no other reason than that they were headlining the show, not all though, with great exceptions such as Slade and Vinegar Joe.

Bernie Marsden

#74. Watch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not a lot being heard that much.

Jimmy Carl Black

#75. The great thing about being the son of Maya Angelou is that I had the good fortune to grow up around some of the greatest black artists, dancers, singers, musicians, and actors of our time.

Guy Johnson

#76. It was about finding creative, original musicians. Musicians who are strong composers. Flexible, empathetic musicians, who are great individually but who also have a great sense for cooperation and collaboration, great listeners as well as great players.

Joshua Redman

#77. I love music and musicians. And seeing great artists dropped from labels was really frustrating and sad to me.

Rosanna Arquette

#78. It's just a joy to be able to work with a lot of different musicians. When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes.

Cass McCombs

#79. The musicians are really on board, they're doing a great job together. There is some kind of a good chemistry, I would say affectionate chemistry and it's a huge promise of success.

Lucien Bouchard

#80. My great inspiration has always been Studs Terkel, who is a wonderful American oral historian. He was a radio DJ at first, interviewed a lot of jazz musicians, and at some point started to interview Americans about work.

Hans Ulrich Obrist

#81. In ancient times the greatest of the prophets were great musicians.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

#82. I knew a lot of my musicians used to take coke. I never saw them. They would hide it from me, so I wasn't really aware of it. Creatively, I don't think it was that great.

Giorgio Moroder

#83. One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.

Branford Marsalis

#84. It's always great playing with other musicians. It's also a great situation where I'm the older guy, I've influenced generations of guitar players.

Ace Frehley

#85. Not only was he not mad, but he was a musician, and my favorite men had always been musicians or writers or anything that involved the creative process and behaving like tortured artists ... I found financial insecurity a great aphrodisiac.

Marian Keyes

#86. Maybe the idea of being a rockstar or being the one who's recording or playing, sort of doesn't really matter as much anymore, when you're surrounded by great musicians who bring their spirit, their own talent.

Adrian Grenier

#87. Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practiced by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere.

Maurice Saatchi

#88. When you have the opportunity to make music with great musicians, take it. That's it. That's the only reason I need, really.

Joss Stone

#89. John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.

Pete Seeger

#90. I began to practise day and night, and the more I did, the more I was overwhelmed by the tremendous achievement of that great family of black American musicians I was beginning to know closely.

Gilad Atzmon

#91. When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level

Brian Greene

#92. I never use someone just because they are great musicians. I work with people who have the same kind of feeling towards the music that I do, and the subject that I'm speaking of at that time.

Angelique Kidjo

#93. The great leaders of business, industry, finance, and the great artists, musicians, poets, and writers became great, because they developed the faculty of creative imagination.

Napoleon Hill

#94. People don't understand real musicians anymore. Jack White is great - he's the real thing - but he isn't having hits.

Prince

#95. There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.

Sonny Rollins

#96. I felt I had an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of great soul musicians of the past, who made a lot of social and political commentary through their music.

Aloe Blacc

#97. Deftones is always my main focus. I've been doing it the longest and it's definitely a priority. I think of these as projects. It's not like I'm unfulfilled with a need to find another outlet. I look at it as making music with my friends, and I'm blessed that they're great musicians.

Chino Moreno

#98. Once again, in the fine tradition of North Texas Lab Bands, this is truly a superb band. Under the artful leadership of Neil Slater, these great musicians have managed to combine small group "openness" with the swinging precision of a classic big band. Very enjoyable!

Michael Brecker

#99. Mr. Graves was always using the word weirdo to describe himself and people he liked. He said that all the great writers were "weirdos," too - that our best artists, musicians, and thinkers were first labeled weird in high school or "when they were young." That was "the price of admission.

Matthew Quick

#100. Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

Henry Rollins