Brian McKnight

I thought that true love was a just fairytale but I have it and it’s pretty amazing.

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that’s what I got back to.

When it’s your chance to step up to the plate, just hit it out of the park, and everybody will forget about everything that came before.

I kinda went back to that period between ’88 and ’94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.

The only award I’ve ever worked for or wanted really were the ones that were given to me by the fans. So, whether it’s a platinum record or hit songs, those are the ones that last the most.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don’t. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

You know the actor John Garfield? In one movie he walked up to this train station, the ticket booth, and the guy says, ‘Yes, where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I want a ticket to nowhere.’ I thought: that’s it. The freedom to do that. I want a ticket to nowhere.

The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.

Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

There’s only one bass player in a band. I’m the best bass player of any band I’m in.

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

It’s the same for listeners. If you can’t stand your girlfriend, can’t take it anymore, put on your headphones and escape into another world.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable.

If you want to play somebody’s music, you’d better go into his house.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That’s why I wanted the clarinet.

Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.

I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.