Brian McKnight

I didn’t think my career would last this long, and it’s still going.

Stevie didn’t use the technology to drive the song. He used it to enhance. I use the tools to further my work, I don’t use my work to further the tools.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don’t have to worry about anything.

I think the one thing that I’ve learned is that you cannot predict what’s going to happen. You can’t sit back and try to figure out what people want or leave it up to them to decide. When we all started in this business we would dictate to the audience what was great and they picked up on that based on the fact that we believed that it was great. But that’s all changed. What’s happened in the last ten years or so because is that the technology now means that everyone with a computer can make music and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don’t like that. I listen to everything.

I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

If your dreams don’t scare you they’re not big enough!

Musicianship is using your two ears.

You don’t have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

All I play is truth and emotion.

I’ve always depended upon my own melodic instinct, instead of scale like formulas.

People don’t want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately and this is one of the biggest problems.

While many attempts have been made to define Jazz, what’s the point really. Jazz is to be experienced – period.

What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?

The way I think about the practicing, it is my undercover work.

A musician starting out today should get a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument.

I don’t consider myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can’t develop any further.

The expression of freedom that is Jazz improvisation mirrors the ethos of the best parts of society.

The idea is more important than the style you’re playing in.

The extreme dynamic and percussive possibilities of an acoustic guitar amplified through a bridge pickup have, over many years of performing, informed not only the way I play, but the way I write and sing too. My guitar taught me to sing in textures, from the roundest lingering harmonic to the sharpest snap of a pulled string. Being a percussion instrument as well as a melodic instrument, my guitar also teaches me about the relationship between rhythm and melody. Portable. Did I mention it also taught me about being portable?