66 Quotes by Steve Winwood

Listening to music for me is like homework. Music will give me enjoyment, but as soon as it's giving me that enjoyment, I want to analyse it, and then it becomes work. Why does it sound like that? How?... then I dissect it.

A lot of people think that the music was responsible for a lot of changes in the Sixties, but I think the music came out of it. The music wouldnt have happened without the social changes.

The music I write, I feel, is not the kind of music for a 25-year-old.

Here we were supposedly changing the world for the better in the Sixties, but as we get 40 years further down the line, we realise that some of those changes such as the drugs probably weren't all that great or sensible. It was all about social experiments.

It's an often-asked question, 'Why did all these spotty white English boys suddenly start playing blues in the '60s?' It was recognized as this kind of vibrant music and when I first started playing in a blues band I just wanted to bring it to a wider public who hadn't really heard it.

To make a living from doing something I love is fantastic. As long as people want to listen to me, I'll keep doing it. In fact, to tell you the truth, even if no one did want to listen to me, I'd still be doing it!

Obviously, the Sixties was a time when everyone wanted to experiment, and then everything became very formulated and corporate, so artists tended to get pushed into a kind of pattern. Now, I think that has continued with the emergence of televised talent shows like 'X Factor.'

One of my problems is I'm not really sure if I slot into rock or not. I've always tried to combine world music, folk, jazz, blues and rock, and have done since Traffic.

Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn't bother me too much. It wasn't really a musical threat.