R&b Music Quotes

When there's music in your soul, there's soul in your music.

I heard in my own voice the tulmult of a young man playig a role, uneasily, repackaging black R&B music from America, relying on gimmicky outfits, and pretending to be wild & free when in reality he needed to be looked after by his mother.

The basement and music had become this incomprehensible landscape threatening to split me open. Like meeting God finally and learning he hates you.

MOST DAYS MY LIFE CAN BE SUMMED UP IN MOVIE QUOTES AND HIP HOP AND R&B LYRICS

Years and years ago, I read a great interview with Jam and Lewis, the R&B producers, in which they described what it was like to be members of Prince's band. They'd sit down, and Prince would tell them what he wanted them to play, and they'd explain that they couldn't--they weren't quick enough, or good enough. And Prince would push them and push them until they mastered it, and then just when they were feeling pleased with themselves for accomplishing something they didn't know they had the capacity for, he'd tell them the dance steps he needed to accompany the music. This story has stuck with me, I think, because it seems like an encapsulation of the very best and most exciting kind of creative process.

You see, there's some blues for folks ain't never had a thing, and that's a sad blues ... but the saddest kind of blues is for them that's had everything they ever wanted and has lost it, and knows it won't come back no more. Ain't no sufferin' in this world worse than that; and that's the blue we call 'I Had It But It's All Gone Now.

Great space has no corners; Great powers come late; Great music is soft sound; The great Form no shape. Tao 41

The 'magic' is the known and unknown quiet, spiritual, invisible thread which links and reveals harmonic elements to a universe of high vibrational sensory. And our beloved Bro. Maurice David knew it's undeniable creative power, from within.

James Brown had many guises, many names: Crip, Music Box, The Hardest Working Man In Show Business, Mr. Please Please Please, Butane James, Soul Brother Number One, Skates, The Godfather of Soul...He was His Own Bad Bad Self, the Sex Machine, Black Elvis, the Minister of the New New Super Heavy Funk, The Original Disco Man, Universal James. But before any of them, he was simply a dancer doing the James Brown.

For Dylan, this electric assault threatened to suck the air out of everything else, only there was too much radio oxygen to suck. “Like a Rolling Stone” was the giant, all-consuming anthem of the new “generation gap” disguised as a dandy’s riddle, a dealer’s come-on. As a two-sided single, it dwarfed all comers, disarmed and rejuvenated listeners at each hearing, and created vast new imaginative spaces for groups to explore both sonically and conceptually. It came out just after Dylan’s final acoustic tour of Britain, where his lyrical profusion made him a bard, whose tabloid accolade took the form of political epithet: “anarchist.” As caught on film by D. A. Pennebaker’s documentary Don’t Look Back, the young folkie had already graduated to rock star in everything but instrumentation. “Satisfaction” held Dylan back at number two during its four-week July hold on Billboard’s summit, giving way to Herman’s Hermits’ “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am” and Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” come August, novelty capstones to Dylan’s unending riddle. (In Britain, Dylan stalled at number four.) The ratio of classics to typical pop schlock, like Freddie and the Dreamers’ “I’m Telling You Now” or Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual,” suddenly got inverted. For cosmic perspective, yesterday’s fireball, Elvis Presley, sang “Do the Clam.” Most critics have noted the Dylan influence on Lennon’s narratives. Less space gets devoted to Lennon’s effect on Dylan, which was overt: think of how Dylan rewires Chuck Berry (“Subterranean Homesick Blues”) or revels in inanity (“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”). Even more telling, Lennon’s keening vocal harmonies in “Nowhere Man,” “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and “Dr. Robert” owed as much to the Byrds and the Beach Boys, high-production turf Dylan simply abjured. Lennon also had more stylistic stretch, both in his Beatle context and within his own sensibility, as in the pagan balalaikas in “Girl” or the deliberate amplifier feedback tripping “I Feel Fine.” Where Dylan skewed R&B to suit his psychological bent, Lennon pursued radical feats of integration wearing a hipster’s arty façade, the moptop teaching the quiet con. Building up toward Rubber Soul throughout 1965, Beatle gravity exerted subtle yet inexorable force in all directions.

Deanna lifted her hand to the back of her neck, stretching it from side to side. Now that he thought about it, she’d been doing that a lot today. “Do you have a headache?” he asked. She sighed. “Yeah. I haven’t been sleeping that well, and when we were doing drills yesterday, I tweaked my neck carrying equipment the wrong way.” Lucky saw a way to get this conversation back on track, so he steered them towards it. “I can help you with that.” “That’s okay,” she dismissed him. “I don’t want a massage, but thanks.” “I wasn’t offering a massage, but you’re welcome.” “But you said you could help me…” “Yeah, I did. And I can. But I didn’t say anything about a massage,” he corrected her. “Oh, no, I don’t want to take anything. I try not to take medicine unless I absolute—” “Ehhh,” he interrupted her, making the sound of a buzzer. “Wrong again. Do you want to try door number three, or should I just tell you what I was offering?” She chuckled, and his heart swelled with pride. The fact that he had made her laugh so easily made him feel like Leo on the Titanic—like he was the king of the world. “Fine. Tell me,” she replied, her tone in full sass mode. “Well, since you asked soooo nicely,” he overemphasized. “I was going to say that I could get rid of your headache if you wanted me to.” Sounding more than a little skeptical, she asked, “How?” “By going down on you,” he stated plainly and confidently. “What!?” she shrieked. “What are you talking about?” “I’m talking about me between your legs for a good thirty minutes or so. You’ll feel the scratch of my stubble on the side of your thighs, and all you’ll see is the top of my head. I’m talking about touching and kissing and licking you—” “Okay,” she cut in. “I get the point.” “Well.” He shrugged. “You asked what I was talking about, so I figured I should be clear.” Laughter filled her voice as she asked, “How do you do that?” “Do what?” “Say those….things… and make them sound so casual? Normal? Not dirty?” “It’s part of my charm, really. I can make the most innocent things sound dirty and the dirtiest things sound completely innocent,” he explained. “I believe you.” She was shaking her head and looking out the window, but with the moonlight streaming in, he could see that her face was flushed with what he was going to believe was arousal. “Just think about it. The offer’s on the table.” With that he turned up the music, which happened to be R&B. He figured a little Marvin Gaye couldn’t do anything but help his cause.

Both C.K. and Bieber are extremely gifted performers. Both climbed to the top of their industry, and in fact, both ultimately used the Internet to get big. But somehow Bieber “made it” in one-fifteenth of the time. How did he climb so much faster than the guy Rolling Stone calls the funniest man in America—and what does this have to do with Jimmy Fallon? The answer begins with a story from Homer’s Odyssey. When the Greek adventurer Odysseus embarked for war with Troy, he entrusted his son, Telemachus, to the care of a wise old friend named Mentor. Mentor raised and coached Telemachus in his father’s absence. But it was really the goddess Athena disguised as Mentor who counseled the young man through various important situations. Through Athena’s training and wisdom, Telemachus soon became a great hero. “Mentor” helped Telemachus shorten his ladder of success. The simple answer to the Bieber question is that the young singer shot to the top of pop with the help of two music industry mentors. And not just any run-of-the-mill coach, but R& B giant Usher Raymond and rising-star manager Scooter Braun. They reached from the top of the ladder where they were and pulled Bieber up, where his talent could be recognized by a wide audience. They helped him polish his performing skills, and in four years Bieber had sold 15 million records and been named by Forbes as the third most powerful celebrity in the world. Without Raymond’s and Braun’s mentorship, Biebs would probably still be playing acoustic guitar back home in Canada. He’d be hustling on his own just like Louis C.K., begging for attention amid a throng of hopeful entertainers. Mentorship is the secret of many of the highest-profile achievers throughout history. Socrates mentored young Plato, who in turn mentored Aristotle. Aristotle mentored a boy named Alexander, who went on to conquer the known world as Alexander the Great. From The Karate Kid to Star Wars to The Matrix, adventure stories often adhere to a template in which a protagonist forsakes humble beginnings and embarks on a great quest. Before the quest heats up, however, he or she receives training from a master: Obi Wan Kenobi. Mr. Miyagi. Mickey Goldmill. Haymitch. Morpheus. Quickly, the hero is ready to face overwhelming challenges. Much more quickly than if he’d gone to light-saber school. The mentor story is so common because it seems to work—especially when the mentor is not just a teacher, but someone who’s traveled the road herself. “A master can help you accelerate things,” explains Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and career coach behind the bestseller The Success Principles. He says that, like C.K., we can spend thousands of hours practicing until we master a skill, or we can convince a world-class practitioner to guide our practice and cut the time to mastery significantly.

though there was something so fascinating and absorbing to my engaged mind, that I frequently long to reproduce its unearthly music and sights.

pitch axis theory, which I learned in high school from my music teacher Bill Westcott. It is a compositional technique that was actually developed at the turn of the last century, so this is something that had been around for a long time. I remember Bill saying, "I'm going to teach you this very cool compositional technique," and he sat me down at the piano, and he went, "Watch this: I'll hold this C bass note, and then I play these chords, and each chord will put me in a different key, but it will sound like C 'something' to you . . ." I was fascinated by it, because I thought, "That is the sound I'm hearing in my head." To me it sounded very "rock," because rock songs don't travel around in too many keys, and it was the antithesis of the modern pop music that had been around for fifty years. It was the total opposite of most commercial jazz, but not all jazz, as I learned when I started really listening closely to modern jazz. I realized, "Wow, John Coltrane is using pitch axis theory. Not only is he doing that, but he’s going beyond it with his 'sheets of sound' approach," where in addition to building modes in different keys off of one bass note, he was building modes off of notes outside the key structure as well. He had taken it a step further. But that’s not what I was looking for, except for in a song like "The Enigmatic," which has that sort of complete atonal-meetspsycho melodic approach. I was more interested in using the pitch axis where you really could identify with one key bass note, in a rock and R&B sort of fashion. Then all the chords that you put on top would basically put you in different keys. So on Not of This Earth, you have these pounding E eighth notes on the bass, and your audience says, "Okay, we're in the key of E." But the chords on top are saying, "E Lydian, E Minor, E Lydian, E Mixolydian in cyclical form." And I thought, "Well, this gives me great melodic opportunities, I'm not stuck with just the seven notes of one key. I've got seven notes for every different key that I apply on top of this bass note." And I just love that sound, so I applied it to quite a lot of my music.

but God is the God of the unsuccessful—the God of those who have failed. Heaven is being filled with earth’s broken lives, and there is no “bruised reed” (Isa. 42:3) that Christ cannot take and restore to a glorious place of blessing and beauty. He can take a life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it a harp whose music will be total praise. He can lift earth’s saddest failure up to heaven’s glory. J. R. Miller

The Blasters proved to be the most prominent and popular of these acts by far. Originally a quartet, the band was bred in Downey, just down the freeway from East L.A. In their teens, brothers Phil and Dave Alvin were bitten by the blues bug; they became habitués of the L.A. club the Ash Grove, where many of the best-known folk and electric blues performers played, and they sought out the local musicians who could teach them their craft, learning firsthand from such icons as Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, and Little Richard’s saxophonist Lee Allen (who would ultimately join the band in the ’80s). But the Blasters’ style was multidimensional: they could play R&B, they loved country music, and they were also dyed-in-the-wool rockabilly fans who were initially embraced by the music’s fervent L.A. cultists. Their debut album, 1980’s American Music, was recorded in a Van Nuys garage by the Milan, Italy–born rockabilly fanatic Rockin’ Ronnie Weiser, and released on his indie label Rollin’ Rock Records, which also issued LPs by such first-generation rockabilly elders as Gene Vincent, Mac Curtis, Jackie Waukeen Cochran, and Ray Campi. By virtue of Phil Alvin’s powerful, unmannered singing and Dave Alvin’s adept guitar playing and original songwriting, the Blasters swiftly rose to the top of a pack of greasy local bands that also included Levi and the Rockats (a unit fronted by English singer Levi Dexter) and the Rockabilly Rebels (who frequently backed Ray Campi). Los Lobos were early Blasters fans, and often listened to American Music in their van on the way to their own (still acoustic) gigs. Rosas says, “We loved their first record, man. We used to play the shit out of that record. Dave [Hidalgo] was the one who got a copy of it, and he put it on cassette.

No one doubts that eventually the Matabele will be conquered, and that our flag will wave triumphantly over the remnant of them in the same way it waves triumphantly over the workhouse pauper and the sailors' poor whore in the east end of London. Let it wave on over an empire reaching from north to south, from east to west, wave over every island, hitherto ungrabbed, on every sterile desert and fever-haunted swamp as yet unclaimed, over the sealer amid the icebergs, stripping the fur from the live seal, on purpose to oblige a lady; over the abandoned transport camel, perishing of thirst in the Sudan: and still keep waving over Leicester Square, where music halls at night belch out crowds of stout imperialists.

Are you one of those people who thinks hip-hop belongs to Black people?” I ask. “Of course it does.” He smooths the humor from his expression. “We made it. It’s ours in the same way jazz and the blues and R&B are ours. We innovated, making sound where there was no sound before. The very roots of hip-hop are in West Africa from centuries ago. But we share our shit all the time, so you’re welcome.” I lift a brow at his ethno-arrogance, but he throws his head back laughing at me, maybe at himself. “Art, specifically music, is a living thing,” he says. “It isn’t just absorbed by the people who hear it, but it absorbs them. So, we shared hip-hop with the world, and it isn’t just ours anymore. The Beastie Boys heard it. Eminem heard it. Whoever heard it fell in love with it, added to it, and became a part of it.” “And that’s a good thing?” “Mostly. If that hadn’t happened, if we hadn’t shared it and someone other than us loved it, it’d still be niche. Underground. Now it’s global, but that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t gone main- stream. Mainstream means more opportunities, so I’m all for white, Asian, Hispanic. We need everybody buying hip-hop, because ultimately, it’s about that green.

I just find music to be one of the great creations of humankind. It breaks boundaries, it brings people together, and it seems to transcend differences. It bonds us to each other. It does all of that without regard for whether it’s jazz, or rocka- billy, or blues, or rock, or folk, or R&B, or soul, or gospel, or country, or classical, or whatever your genre of choice might be. It does all of that, whether it’s Vivaldi’s violins, or Paul Desmond’s haunting alto sax, or James Burton’s twangy guitar. It’s important stuff to us humans, and it’s important stuff to me.

At the seminar, participants also tried to come up with a name for Bob’s system. Somehow, Electronic Instruments for the Composition and Performance of Contemporary Music—the wording in the January AES ad—didn’t roll trippingly off the tongue. Nikolais’ “Moogaphone” wasn’t much better. The best the participants could come up with was “Goombars”—a jumbling of the letters of R. A. Moog with the “b” from Bob—but it was voted down.

Groove is a feeling that you give the music, whether it's swing or funk or whatever. As far as cultivating the groove, I guess it's just something I've always had. I started out playing funk and R&B-the music, the situations, and the people I played with were all about grooving. When I went into jazz, I took that with me. After Jaco came out, a lot of bassists forgot about the groove part of playing and became virtuoso lead players. I like the virtuoso thing when it's time for that, but when I'm playing with the band I always have to be locked in with the drummer and grooving.

Whatever music you were into, it was exploding in the Nineties. Guitar bands, hip-hop, R&B, techno, country, Britpop, trip-hop, blip-hop, ambient, illbient, jungle, ska, swing, Belgian jam bands, Welsh gangsta rap—every music genre you could name (or couldn’t)—(and a few that probably didn’t really exist) was on a roll that made the Sixties look picayune and provincial. We can argue all day whether Nineties music holds up, but fans devoured—and paid for—more music than ever before or since. The average citizen purchased CDs in numbers that look shocking now, and even shocking then. Every week, thousands of people bought new copies of the Grease soundtrack, from 1978, and nobody knew why. Even critics had trouble finding things to complain about (though we sure tried).

Christ is building His kingdom with the broken things of earth. People desire only the strong, successful, victorious, and unbroken things in life to build their kingdoms, but God is the God of the unsuccessful—the God of those who have failed. Heaven is being filled with earth’s broken lives, and there is no “bruised reed”(Isa. 42: 3) that Christ cannot take and restore to a glorious place of blessing and beauty. He can take a life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it a harp whose music will be total praise. He can lift earth’s saddest failure up to heaven’s glory. J. R. Miller

Sutty despised the sound of music and had something close to a panic attack if the dial ever turned to it. He preferred talk radio and phone-in shows. Cabbies complaining about asylum seekers. He murmured to himself and nodded along, like it was the latest hit. I’d performed my daily routine of changing all the pre-sets to hip-hop and R’n’B stations, something I’d been doing for so long that he thought there was a ghost in the machine. Then I’d gone to collect him and waited until he turned on the radio. I thought he might throw himself from the car.

The focus of that week was “learning how to listen to the voice of God” in what was dubbed “My Quiet Time with God.” You have to admire the camp leaders’ intent, but let’s be honest. Most pre-adolescents are clueless about such deeply spiritual goals, let alone the discipline to follow through on a daily basis. Still, good little camperettes that we were, we trekked across the campground after our counselors told us to find our “special place” to meet with God each day. My special place was beneath a big tree. Like the infamous land-run settlers of Oklahoma’s colorful history, I staked out the perfect location. I busily cleared the dirt beneath my tree and lined it with little rocks, fashioned a cross out of two twigs, stuck it in the ground near the tree, and declared that it was good. I wiped my hands on my madras Bermudas, then plopped down, cross-legged on the dirt, ready to meet God. For an hour. One very long hour. Just me and God. God and me. Every single day of camp. Did I mention these quiet times were supposed to last an entire hour? I tried. Really I did. “Now I lay me down to sleep . . . ” No. Wait. That’s a prayer for babies. I can surely do better than that. Ah! I’ve got it! The Lord’s Prayer! Much more grown-up. So I closed my eyes and recited the familiar words. “Our Father, Who art in heaven . . .” Art? I like art. I hope we get to paint this week. Maybe some watercolor . . . “Hallowed by Thy name.” I’ve never liked my name. Diane. It’s just so plain. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have named me Veronica? Or Tabitha? Or Maria—like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Oh my gosh, I love that movie! “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . . ” Be done, be done, be done . . . will this Quiet Time ever BE DONE? I’m sooooo bored! B-O-R-E-D. BORED! BORED! BORED! “On earth as it is in Heaven.” I wonder if Julie Andrews and I will be friends in heaven. I loved her in Mary Poppins. I really liked that bag of hers. All that stuff just kept coming out. “Give us this day, our daily bread . . . ” I’m so hungry, I could puke. I sure hope they don’t have Sloppy Joes today. Those were gross. Maybe we’ll have hot dogs. I’ll take mine with ketchup, no mustard. I hate mustard. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” What the heck is a trespass anyway? And why should I care if someone tresses past me? “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil . . . ” I am so tempted to short-sheet Sally’s bed. That would serve her right for stealing the top bunk. “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” This hour feels like forever. FOR-E-VERRRR. Amen. There. I prayed. Now what?

...while riot grrrl is part of the punk rock/alternative rock feminism of the 1990s, it's by no means the majority of it. Despite the slogan, not every girl was a riot grrrl, and there's a huge swath of awesome women in '90s music who aren't riot grrrls. In no particular order: L7, Hole, PJ Harvey, Belly, Throwing Muses, Seven Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland, Liz Phair, Bjork, Juliana Hatfield, Gwen Stefani/No Doubt, Shirley Manson/Garbage, the Breeders, Luscious Jackson, Elastica, Sleater-Kinney, and may more women were part of either the alternative or indie rock music scene. Beyond that, the decade was pretty amazing for singer-songwriters like Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Tracy Chapman, and Melissa Etheridge; for the R&B and hip-hop artists like Salt-n-Peppa, Queen Latifah, TLC, En Vogue, and Missy Elliott; and, at the tail end of the decade, all the pop you could ever want with the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Destiny's Child. So, if you read this book, then run to Spotify to listen to riot grrrl bands, and find they're not for you, remember: there's more than one way to be a girl, and there's more than one kind of music to power you to your goals. What you listen to will never be as important as what you do.

You do understand what I mean!” he exclaimed, pleased to see Maude responding to his song. “I chose Nina Simone to show you something else. Just like you, Nina Simone had a classical background. When she was younger, she wanted to become a concert pianist. Her skill was beyond measure and she used it in a wide repertoire of jazz, blues, and R&B songs. And I think you can do the same. Music knows no limits and I truly understand why James insisted on signing you, Maude.” Maude remained silent, still thinking about his rendition of Nina Simone. “All you have to do is dig deeper. Try finding some suffering in you. Don’t sing the Cenerentola with a smile. Although you look like a girl who’s had it all. You know, the nice girl from the North of France, who grew up in a quiet, small town with her loving mom and dad and brothers and sisters, always top of her class, quick-tempered when things didn’t go her way. A bit spoiled, I guess. You have to put all that—” “Spoiled?” Maude blurted in utter disbelief, the word echoing through her mind. Of all the things he could’ve said about her, spoiled was the last word that could have appeared remotely appropriate to describe her. As for suffering, she’d had plenty of that, too, which is why she didn’t want to think about it. Not while she was so happy in New York and Carvin and the Ruchets were the last thing she wanted in her head. She painfully pushed the Ruchets away from her mind and turned to Matt, eyes flaring up again. “You know nothing about me, Matt,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “And you obviously know nothing about suffering, or you wouldn’t idealize it the way that you do. You see it as a romantic notion that seemingly gives depth to songwriting. And it does. Not because the singers actually thought of woe in a purely aesthetic way, but because that’s how they actually lived. You will never understand that,” she finished, trembling from head to toe. And with that, she grabbed her bag, coat, gloves, scarf, and stormed out of Matt’s Creation Room, slamming the door behind her.

The memorable commercials on Cresta Blanca Carnival began with a cascade of music, indicating a verbal pouring of wine. Then, in a catchy jingle out of an echo chamber, with each letter punctuated by a plunking violin: C-R-E-S-T-A B-L-A-N-C-A … Cresta Blanca!

Silver confetti falls from the ceiling. The music launches again, and the sleek young mob dances feverishly, arms in the air. My head throbs along with the bass. Why had I agreed to this? I plug my ears with my fingers. I feel ridiculous beside these twenty-somethings. Marie and her friend apparently do not. They’re drinking the champagne and bopping their heads to the music. I watch a group of girls pucker for a photographer. They’re practically falling out of their tops. I hear Emily’s voice. Prude. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell Marie, and slide out of the booth. And I’m thinking of those catacombs, seemingly endless. I can see Emily, the version of her in that coffin. Embalming, the displacement of blood and interstitial fluids by embalming chemicals. I had looked the process up, after Mom insisted on a viewing. She was so beautiful, she cried. I want to see her one more time. The body is washed in disinfectant, limbs are massaged and manipulated, eyes glued closed, mouth and jaw secured with wires. The embalming solution contains dye to simulate a lifelike skin tone. A warm peach tone, the funeral director told us. I could barely stand it. I make my way to the second floor, where the music isn’t techno, only sultry R&B.