Ahmet Ertegun Quotations

There are still many great surviving talents: Stevie Winwood. Another great talent is Stevie Wonder. Another one is Eric Clapton. Another one is Phil Collins. Eminem, Kanye West I like all those people.

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

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

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

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 singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

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

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 was very brave to do because Ataturk was cutting off the heads of the imams. And people thought that that was foolhardy of my father.

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 going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915.

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 killed me. My doctor said I should stick to wine.

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