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Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. … This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.

— Ray Charles

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Music

More quotes by Ray Charles

You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right.

Wisdom for the Soul of Black Folk (2007)

Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.

Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)

I was born with music inside me.

Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)

My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)

Music has been around a long time, and there's going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it's a big record, that's the frosting on the cake, but music's the main meal.

All Ray Charles quotes →

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The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value.

Lucy Green

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Thomas Carlyle Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

Eduard Hanslick

Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.

François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ray Charles (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.