Ray Charles

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.

I do Jazz, Blues, Country and so forth. I do them all like a good utility man.

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

The fact of the matter is, you don’t give up what’s natural. Anything I’ve fantasized about, I’ve done.

My version of Georgia became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.

I don’t believe music can be free unless it has something to be free from.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.

Keep on listening and tapping your feet.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don’t do that on stage.

Music is a reservoir… of sounds.

People involve themselves with the superficiality of Jazz without digging for its soul.

It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just that when you’re playing, Stephane, you’ve got both Chaput and me backing you, but when I’m soloing I’ve only got one guitar behind me!

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.