Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter; a major influence on my own music from the very start.

Americans think that if you’re popular, there must be something wrong with you.

When you’re playing in front of people, everything is external. It’s all going from you out to an audience. When you’re in a studio, it’s very internalised, it’s going from the air through you into...

To me, there’s two kinds of music these days. There’s ephemeral music, and there’s music that has lasting power and depth.

If you can sing, you never lose your voice. If you don’t know how to sing, your voice goes away because you sing from your throat.

This illness made it impossible for me to give my best effort to our audience, but now that it’s been identified, I’m looking forward to a complete, quick recovery and to get back out there...

Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.

Being at college, I think that’s the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.

When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.

The first thing I ever did was play talent shows at the Uptown Theater and the Adelphi Ballroom.

Any song I don’t feel good about, I shelve. Anything you ever hear me sing, it’s because I want to.

For years and years, I was beset with snide remarks by certain members of the press, where they would turn John Oates into a joke, or they would trivialize what I do, which never really...

Late 20th century music was a really important thing. It changed the world, and I’m part of that, and now I’m part of the museum that celebrates that.

I think an artist’s true worth comes through an inter-generational thing – when you go beyond your own time, and start influencing people in a greater way than just what surrounds you.

If you’re African American, you are forced into making different choices, in a lot of cases, than you are as a white person.

I have to say I have never been comfortable with somebody else telling me what to do – in any way.

Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.

I have an English family and I’ve lived in England for years.

Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.

Art is a continuum.

I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I’m not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it’s cool.

If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don’t have their assistants and entourage, it’s funny to see what happens.

The late 20th century had just enough communication abilities to allow superstar-ness and communality to happen. It was a musical renaissance that rivals the visual one that happened in the 1400s.

In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.

Chronic Lyme causes arthritis, heart problems, stroke – even death.

I’m constantly on my toes and re-examining my own music.

I’d like to see more crossover between white and black music. That’s something I’ve been advocating for years.

To write a good song, an artist has to drawn from reality. There has to be some spark from realism that communicates a real feeling to someone else. You have to be real. Or you...

As I got older, my voice got better.

I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.

In the early ’70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.

I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.

My fan base is really expanding into an inter-generational thing – it’s what every artist probably hopes for.

I don’t like showboating. I was never a fan of showing off.

I’m not a big fan of any video, especially my own. In a word, I hated the Hall & Oates videos.

I’m a born collaborator. This is what I was born to do, really.

If you are a superstar, or whatever you want to call yourself, a person who’s had outrageous success, and you decide to go indie and tell the record companies to screw themselves? That takes a...

Having a solo career is a funny thing.

I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I’m fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working...

I always say the same thing – believe in what you do, do it, and don’t veer away from the truth of it.

I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And...

Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.

I’ve got a sense of humor. I’m a funny guy.

I’m used to the egos in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.

I’m always interested in what fans think.

If you work hard and you’re good, you can build something for yourself.

I don’t really strain my voice.

I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I’ve been a...

Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence...

I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.