“Plantation gospel music was the stuff I fell in love with when I was a kid - these beautiful melodies and these hard, hard stories.”
“I never gave up on music, and I feel like music never gave up on me.”
“I met a zillion people through Ronnie Wood. He's been my friend since he was in The Faces, and he's still my best friend. A real person, earthy, working 24 hours a day, uplifting to be around, and he's still got that fire about music.”
“We take things for granted, and because we wake up every day, you start talking about what you're going to do next week. I said, 'Who told you you would be here next week?'”
“When I first played New York, it was with James Brown at the Apollo, and I was playing in a band under the name The Valentinos. I remember Sam Cooke saying, 'I want you to go in there with James Brown. I couldn't be as hard on you as James Brown would be.' But we came out marching like soldiers.”
“When I was a kid, during those days, you couldn't use instruments. It was against the pastor's religion, so all the singers would make these instruments with their voices. It was just unbelievable. I couldn't explain it.”
“You knew the difference between Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, straight away. Now everyone sounds like each other, and I don't think that's right.”
“Nobody could understand why a guy would love his guitar, then all of a sudden turn around and try to destroy it. Jimi was just different.”
“Chicago is old stomping grounds for me.”
“Estee Lauder cologne. Sam Cooke always wore it, and I started wearing it because he wore it.”