I've been performing since I was in high school, so I've seen people react to my music and my playing. I'm always appreciative when people like the music, but I'm not shocked.
You're now getting a new breed of people like Il Divo and Andrea Bocelli and I think that's why people feel less intimidated by classical music than they once did.
When I'm in Senegal, I can't just sit in isolation making music. People need my help. And the Senegalese people helped create my music. It comes from the country itself.
By 1969, when I celebrated 45 years in the music business, I also had 45 people in our musical family.
We want to get this good music to as many people as possible because I think it heals, it soothes, I think music is incredibly important, especially in today's chaos.
Country music is the people's music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.
You don't ever want to devalue music. Music is important; it's necessary product. I always try to make sure that there's a value - that people appreciate music and realize that there's a value to it.
Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.
America, I think, is about poor people playing music and poor people sharing food and poor people dancing, even when everything else in their life is so desperate, and so dismal that it doesn't seem there should be any room for any music, any extra f...
For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're ...
I've become kind of a haven for people who like pop music, but that's not the only thing they like. They also like music in general and want to be able to expand their own horizons. They haven't completely given up on music and are willing to have so...
Musical freedom has always been very strong for me, something to strive for, to be able to play the music you enjoy playing rather than playing music that other people want to hear, which I find rather shallow and unrewarding. So I make albums I like...
Folk music is a bunch of fat people.
People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.
Bollywood music is definitely a big part of Indian music and can be a great way to introduce people to the sound. But I hope to continue to incorporate other types of Indian music into my work.
It's funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can't afford the music.
I have always made commercial music. The people who vote for the Grammy nominees are mostly in their 40s and have other jobs or are musicians themselves. They like music that they can relate to - they like commercial music.
There's no way that music could ever go down the tubes. I can't imagine a civilization without music. When you realize today that music is such a part of people's lives. And will always be, really.
When I use the Internet, it's pretty much strictly for music. Checking out other people's web sites, what's going on, listening to music. It's pretty much a musical thing for me.
Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.
