Quotes

The band hated that makeup. If we didn't put on makeup, they wouldn't have let us in those white clubs. They figured we weren't gonna bother the white girls.

[on Elvis Presley] Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.

[on Elvis Presley] He was an integrator, Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music.

The grass may look greener on the other side, but it's just as hard to cut.

I'm a conductor of revivals. The only minister in the whole package. Little Richard, the evangelist.

I am the architect of rock 'n' roll. I have to be a fan of all its forms.

I had never heard nobody do it, and I was scared. I really feel from the bottom of my heart that I am the inventor. If there was somebody else, I didn't know then, didn't hear them, haven't heard them. Not even to this day. So I say I'm the architect.

When I first came along, I never heard of any rock 'n' roll. I only heard Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Ruth Brown, and Roy Brown. Blues. Fats Domino at the time was playing nothing but low-down blues. When I started singing, I sang it a long time before I presented it to the public, because I was afraid they wouldn't like it.

I think that Elvis was more acceptable being white back in that period. I believe that if Elvis had been black, he wouldn't have been as big as he was. If I was white, do you know how huge I'd be? If I was white, I'd be able to sit on top of the White House! A lot of things they would do for Elvis and Pat Boone, they wouldn't do for me.