It is a great life, this life of music..

I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track i….

I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi's apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized t….

Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music..

The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair.

My first wife was a theater person..

I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, every day, for about 40 years and it never occurred to me it'd kill me. If I'd have continued it might have ….

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop si….

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where peo….

My father believed very strongly in Ataturk. Ataturk was a very powerful man and a man of great vision..

Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof..

I became a jazz fan quite early and never went off the path thereafter..

A singer's biographical film should have their music and their voice..

I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music..

There's been so much bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks..

There are still many great surviving talents: Stevie Winwood. Another great talent is Stevie Wonder. Another one is Eric Clapton. Another one is Phil….

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops..

My father was a very religious person. And he prayed five times a day. And he did that throughout his relationship with Ataturk - at a time when it w….

I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn't have the other $20,000. I shou….

The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution. Ataturk saw where history was ….

Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write - no matter how bad they are - get recorded..