I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his life's work.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.

A singer’s biographical film should have their music and their voice.

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches – like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin – were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

The all-time greatest Atlantic group – The Drifters.

Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write – no matter how bad they are – get recorded.

The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair.

There’s been so much bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks.

My father was a very religious person. And he prayed five times a day. And he did that throughout his relationship with Ataturk – at a time when it was very brave to do because Ataturk was cutting off the heads of the imams. And people thought that that was foolhardy of my father.