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

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'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 is swinging ... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.

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

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.

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

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