Quotes

Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter of all time. I was in awe of him. But his music wasn't my music. My music was the blues.

[on writing "Hound Dog" with Mike Stoller] I yelled, he played. The groove came together and we finished in 12 minutes flat. I work fast. We raced right back to lay the song on [Big Mama Thornton].

Often I would have a start, two or four lines. [Mike Stoller] would sit at the piano and start to jam, just playing, fooling around, and I'd throw out a line. He would accommodate the line--metrically, rhythmically.