Memphis Quotes
The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival.
Ida B. Wells
When I came out of the military, I had a club in Memphis and I started using the The Bar Kays as my club band. They were still only in the middle school - but I'd take them on the road with me on the weekends, sometimes.
William Bell
Growing up in Memphis and listening to all kinds of music and dreaming... So that was one of the first times I wrote a complete song and set it to music and the whole bit. From then on, I was busy with it.
William Bell
I used to go down every year for the remembrance of Elvis' birthday. Memphis State College invited me to sit in the auditorium and speak to the people for one of those Elvis days.
Otis Blackwell
My parents were working in a hospital in Memphis. But I didn't live there for any length of time that I remember. The first thing I remember is the town in Mississippi that I live in now, Charleston.
Morgan Freeman
A friend of mine took me to Memphis advised me that I should get in the musicians' union. He gave me a set of drums and said, Stay on the job, son.
Levon Helm
Memphis is a great town, man. There's a great musical community here. I'm trying to fit in.
Charles Moore
I hitchhiked, took trucks 'n' trains - anything that would pick me up. I stopped in Memphis for about six months and they found me and come got me. Stayed about a month an' split again.
John Lee Hooker
I picked all the tunes before I went to Memphis, and the band was all set. Willie Mitchell is an arranger like I am, and he let me do what I had to do.
Otis Rush
She would go to Memphis and this was after our divorce. And I would send her to Memphis to be with him.
Priscilla Presley
That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.
Johnny Cash
I love Motown, but I've obviously always been more of a Memphis soul fan. If it's Stax or Motown, I go Stax.
Justin Townes Earle
Most studios in Memphis had a house set of drums; the drummers just brought their own sticks.
Steve Cropper
Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don't know why-the lyrics had no meaning.
Elvis Presley
The many sounds of Memphis shaped my early musical career and continue to be an inspiration to this day.
Justin Timberlake
The support this city and our fans have shown the Grizzlies made my decision to stay in Memphis an easy one. Memphis deserves a championship team, and I am committed to that.
Jerry West
I'd been to Memphis before, but we stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time.
Elvis Costello
I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.
Mac Davis
Memphis is in a very lucky position on the map. Everything just gravitated to Memphis for years.
Steve Cropper
When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.
Elvis Presley
I sang in church growing up. Memphis is the blues capital of the world, we like to say.
Justin Timberlake
I spent a few years here in Memphis, in the late '70s and early '80s, where I was studying a lot of country blues players and their styles. So it seems like every record I'll do, I will appropriate these blues styles that I remember.
Alex Chilton