People called rock & roll 'African music.' They called it 'voodoo music.' They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan - the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.

I look back on my life, comin' out of Macon, Georgia - I never thought I'd be a superstar, a living legend. I never heard of no rock and roll in my life.

And I don't get down on nobody else for doing whatever else they do. To each his own.

I never heard nobody in my audience call me any kind of names.

Black people lived right by the railroad tracks and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.

I only wore makeup when I went onstage.

I saw Uncle John with Long Tall Sally, he saw Aunt Mary coming and he ducked back in the alley.