Steve Winwood Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“I got thrown out of music school for even listening to Fats Domino and Ray Charles. I was asked, 'What kind of music do you like to listen to?' and I said, 'Well, I do like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky but I also like Fats Domino and Ray Charles,' and they literally said, 'Either forget about that or leave.'”

“It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?' It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it.”

“Listening to music for me is like homework. Music will give me enjoyment, but as soon as it's giving me that enjoyment, I want to analyse it, and then it becomes work. Why does it sound like that? How?... then I dissect it.”

“You would probably think that rock music is an urban phenomena, but the main reason for doing it in '68 was so that we could play music very loud any time of the day or night without getting complaints from the neighbours.”

“To make a living from doing something I love is fantastic. As long as people want to listen to me, I'll keep doing it. In fact, to tell you the truth, even if no one did want to listen to me, I'd still be doing it!”

“It could be my British need for discipline that makes me admire the American appetite for freedom and passion.”

“Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn't bother me too much. It wasn't really a musical threat.”

“In some respects I'm quite easily led, so I have to make sure I've got my own space, and that I feel comfortable in my working environment. It's very important for me to work with the right collaborators, as I can easily get led into a corner where I'm not comfortable.”

“Here we were supposedly changing the world for the better in the Sixties, but as we get 40 years further down the line, we realise that some of those changes such as the drugs probably weren't all that great or sensible. It was all about social experiments.”

“My goal has always been to make classic records, classic albums. Sometimes the recording process and the era it was recorded in means the production leans in a particular way, but to me they are all part of the same process.”