I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.

DJs and people in the street know what they like.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

Soul has no musical geographical or racial boundaries.

I was being an artist, being sensitive and technical as artists are. I'm sure Leonardo Da Vinci did that. Artists don't always feel the same as others feel about their work.

Now I get exposure first with people directly in the clubs. This is a unique situation for me.

I've been sampled so much and I'm glad it's happened, it's a great compliment.

What we call soul has been around a long time. It comes out of a particular culture that is African in origin, but influenced by 250 years of slavery, as well as other forms of racial oppression.

Artists don't always know. Almost every song I ever recorded that was a hit at the majors that the promotional people picked I didn't think it would be a hit. I was wrong every time!

I'm celebrating my 40th year in show business this year.

I was with PolyGram; that was the big label that I was with for the longest, like 12 years.

A lot of the hip hop artists don't write music. They write words.

The majors, they have to control the distribution, the record outlets, the radio and, in some cases, even the venues. And downloading and pirating have also put pressure on the majors.

It's a wonderful feeling just being in this creative motif.

I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with.

I'd definitely love to play in Nashville again. That would be really good.

Having good health, being able to breathe and be happy, that's one of the most beautiful gifts. On top of that, I have the gift to play music and make people happy through that. I'm just telling you from my heart, I'm so in love with life.

I still look good. I'm trippin', but people tell me that all the time. So check it out, I'm 63, and still kicking. I've been putting records out every year.

I don't like rap that you can't understand. The youth is so quick and alert.

Back in the day, I used to be in the studio recording 20 hours a day. And that was all of the time. I still record a lot of hours, but I don't go as long as I used to.

I don't trip on that much. I just like to enjoy life and be happy.

When I was recording from '70 to '82, I always played piano and laid the tracks down. But I used to talk to the other musicians while the track was playing.

You grow and learn a lot about the industry and what happens behind closed doors over the years.

The true beauty of music is that it connects people. It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

I generally sell my records online or at the show. You can undersell the distributor and the stores, and people know what they're getting cause they've just seen you live.

I always had this energy level that made me want to come to New York.

Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.

People in England were coming up to me, saying, My mother and father turned me on to your music. This happened to me 20 years ago. When I was 40 they were saying that.

I think music all the time.

I don't think I'm really so unique. If every black person looked at their life they would quickly discover that they have been influenced by every type of music prevalent in America.

Only a certain number of people go to a store over the period of a year. When a person sees my record on the shelf, it eliminates someone else's record from being sold. It's about continuing to try to find new ways to sell records.

Some people really trip on success or popularity. My friends would talk to me about that, about tripping on all this stuff, but you know what I tripped on? I started buying property.

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

I don't know how much influence we really had, because we never put our pictures on the albums or anything and we never really promoted the Talking Heads connection, because we wanted to keep it separate from Talking Heads.

My connection with the Reich Ministers was of a purely official nature and was very infrequent.

In The Name of the King is the right title. To be honest, I don't know who had the final idea for the title but I liked it and it has a strong connection to the movie's story.

Since far fewer people are recruited to serve in a voluntary military, the connection between America and its military is increasingly tenuous and less personal.

It's strange that the newspapers don't see a connection between their false revelations about my private life and my need for seclusion and security.

In fact, because of their connection to the land, farmers do more to protect and preserve our environment than almost anyone else. They are some of the best environmentalists around.

Both of these branches of evolutionary science, are, in my opinion, in the closest causal connection; this arises from the reciprocal action of the laws of heredity and adaptation.

I met Donald Trump in '85. I ran into him several times throughout the years. We knew we had this connection, but it wasn't appropriate timing. So we'd spend a lot of time on the telephone. By '88, I knew I truly loved this guy.

The motif of death plays an important role the human psyche in connection with archetypal and karmic material.

Japanese traditional architecture is created based on these conditions. This is the reason you have a very high degree of connection between the outside and inside in architecture.

Now, there are sometimes making a connection between one section and another that sometimes you do want to see the pattern because it helps you to lead into the next thing - it's a rhetorical thing, where you just see how the pattern has to go into the next thing.

My view was that the campaign had been a sacred thing, that it had been a real compact, because I was there and I saw the connection that Clinton made with people, and the connection that they made with him.

I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.

Spirituality was the main issue. Connection with God was the main issue.

A large part of my life revolves around my dad. Sometimes, I even feel a strong sense of connection, something very tangible when I learn something new in the martial arts.