Best American Music Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“Being from Brazil, I missed out on a lot of American music, so I like to go back and check things out - music from the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. So much of that stuff was groundbreaking.”

“I've always predominantly listened to American music, so when I've made records, I do always think 'It's a shame this isn't being pushed more in America.'”

“I've fallen in love with South American music: Tango, the music of Argentina, the music of Brazil, Stan Getz, Bebel Gilberto.”

“You start learning English in fifth grade. I was 12. But even before then I was listening to American music. My neighbor was a really big hip-hop fan, so he taught me everything around hip-hop.”

“We can watch videos of our whole journey - from old tours to doing the AMAs (American Music Awards) in 2013 and through the 'Star Wars' medley or when we sang with Stevie Wonder on the Grammys. I just sit back and say, 'I can't believe we did all this!'”

“Well, the thing is I always listened to American music way more than French music.”

“At our peril, we ignore the fact that black vernacular, like the blues, both has a form and performs... For just as there would be no American music without black folks, there would be very little of our American language.”

“I'm kind of glad that, over the years, K-pop has really been going into a much more global audience. Especially since I really am leaning towards pursuing the American music market.”

“I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.”

“The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.”

“Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene.”

“I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.”

“I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.”

“American music comes from the same tree, but sometimes we get to these places in history where we forget where things come from, and they get compartmentalized.”

“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”

“Everybody likes music. And rock 'n' roll - that was the music that brought white youth and black youth together for the first time in American music history.”

“As a kid growing up in Sweden loving American music, I always dreamt of migrating here and working with brilliant artists like Donald Glover.”

“American music has become really heavily stylised and focused on production. With producers like the Neptunes and Timbaland, it's so much about the backing track rather than the song.”

“It's amazing how English music manages to travel to America and obviously, American music in the U.K. is massive.”

“Performing the American Music Awards and having Harrison Ford introduce you behind the John Williams orchestra for Star Wars, and then Meghan Trainor is in the front just standing up and like, 'I love you guys!' That was a huge moment.”

“When I read about Gram Parsons' dream of this Cosmic American Music when I was in my late teens, that stuck with me: that idea, that ambition, to draw off the roots of music but take it somewhere fresh.”

“Truth of the matter is, jazz is American music. And that doesn't mean bebop. Jazz is really about improvising. All the music that's been created in America has been pretty much improvised... Whether it's hillbilly or rock n' roll for blues, it's basically jazz music... It's basically about another way of hearing what comes out of America.”

“Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.”

“I've hosted the Soul Train awards, the American Music Awards... and I had my own talk show. So if I can't host by now, what the hell can I do?”

“There is a definite Chinese pop sound developing, but I was shocked at how influenced it is by American music.”

“I was into playing American music, especially the blues.”

“I'm more American than anything else. I grew up in China, but I was fulfilled at a young age by American music. It was my biggest inspiration.”

“Banjos are used in Celtic, English folk music and obviously American music. But not that much in pop music. But it's more versatile than people realise it to be. It's a beautiful instrument, very rhythmic and melodic. You can do anything with it.”

“To me, country music's about life. It's about Monday through Friday. It's the blue-collar, 40-hour week, songs about life. It used to have more of a sound, but I think the heart of that's still the same. It's still American music.”

“My general take on American music since 1969 is that it's just getting stiffer and people are getting more uptight - audience, performance, and palace guard.”

“Sun Studios was where so much of American music exploded from.”

“I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like... except for Show Tunes.”

“'American Music' is an inventive, passionate, pithy novel whose major theme is love itself and whose minor theme, music, is an emotional, meaningful counterpoint. Like Count Basie and His Orchestra, this book swings.”

“If you met my dad, I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But, Coldcut, they're based in the U.K. I'm a big fan of jazz music, so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to.”

“The American Music Awards mean more to us; that's a people's award, and we're a people's band. The Grammys are the critics.”

“We don't compete with the Grammys. The Grammys compete with us. They have taken the stance that anybody who performs on 'The American Music Awards' cannot appear on 'The Grammys.' I don't agree with that philosophy.”

“I love old-time music, I love country music and I love the American music that we have to offer the world. And any part of that is fine with me, as long as it's pure.”

“All the best British groups were inspired by black American music. With The Beatles, it was Motown and the blues. With me, it was a mixture of British styles and the more sophisticated Seventies soul of Barry White and Marvin Gaye.”

“I think the women - Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu - are doing new conceptual things and using their voices to create new American music.”

“The '60s were a time of great change in American music.”

“Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.”

“Blues and jazz is our American music.”

“I learned that instead of relying on and imitating American music, there is a better chance for an Asian artist to succeed if he or she follows his or her own culture.”

“I didn't like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I'm trying to get back to.”

“Beale Street is a very famous street in the history of America. You know, American music in particular. From the blues to jazz, it's a connecting city from New Orleans that goes all the way up to Buffalo through New York.”

“My love for American music and American movies is from an early age. I was 10 or 11 when I heard Fats Domino and Little Richard and Buddy Holly. And the movies, my dad used to take my brother and I to the movies every Friday. It was incredible: we got to see just about every movie that came out for a period of years.”

“Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition.”

“The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.”

“You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.”

“The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization.”

“English urban artists were very used to making secondhand American music, and I thought that was boring.”

“I grew up watching American films, listening to American music, and it's a big contribution to the rest of the world. I mean, American jazz, for me, is the best thing culturally that America has produced.”

“I think Marvin Gaye is one of the greatest American music icons. His 'What's Going On' is as fresh today as when he did it.”

“I joke to people in the press that I realize I'm not black, I'm actually white. But I've got these roots in black American music. I love it.”

“I don't think there is much American music.”

“What appeals to me about an American music directorship is the involvement of the conductor with the orchestra and the community. I think that's a fantastic thing. In Europe, being principal conductor means merely that you're the person who does most of the concerts. For me, that simply isn't enough.”

“I love that there's this tradition of being able to discuss the heaviest topics and the gnarliest stuff that goes down in people's lives in traditional Southern American music.”

“At its best, American music is the soundtrack of our long - and often painful - march toward a more perfect union.”

“American music is always best when it comes from a mixture of things.”

“I'm still trying to make it. I'm still trying to get this over and do it and hopefully leave some kind of a mark on the course of American music, particularly in the tradition of what you might call the singer-songwriter.”

“We'd play the American bases and found all these wonderful records by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke. Without American music, there would not have been a British Invasion.”

“American music is a powerful ingredient in international music, and as much as it comes from within, it also comes from without.”

“American music has infiltrated the entire world enough as it is. Mexican music must be defended with vigilance.”

“American music culture is black culture.”

“The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.”

“Hip hop is the new rock n' roll, you know what I mean? And anybody who doesn't think that is just sort of living in the past. It's all just American music, really, when you get right down to it.”

“I'm always about trying to fill a need with what I do in my artistry. There is definitely a need in the performing arts world for a movement to come along that seriously connects with a next generation audience while still maintaining the timeless artistic objectives present throughout the history of the American music tradition.”

“I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.”

“Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.”