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I started with Sam Cooke when I was 6 or 7 years old.
I always loved James Brown, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke.
People like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding - I do not put myself in that category.
Estee Lauder cologne. Sam Cooke always wore it, and I started wearing it because he wore it.
I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.
I want people to see an honesty within me. I'm not trying to be the next Sam Cooke or Otis Redding.
I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.
I love the pioneers like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but when I write music, it comes out in my own way.
I had been on tour with people like Roy Orbison. I knew Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke. So many great performers.
I drew a lot of inspiration from the Ginuwines, the Ushers, the Michael Jacksons, the James Browns, Sam Cooke.
Oh boy, I grew up hearing Sam Cooke, The Soul Stirrers, Mahalia Jackson, sitting on Mahalia Jackson's lap in my dad's church.
Since I was growing up, I liked love songs - Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke. That was the kind of songs getting the girls dancing.
Popular music has always been rooted in the blues, whether it's Adele or Led Zeppelin or Sam Cooke. It's just the beat that changes.
Sam Cooke was a gospel singer like myself, and when he crossed over and started singing rock n' roll, it kind of gave me the green light to go ahead and do it.
None of the jazz greats made music for the purpose of you going to check out music before them. Michael Jackson didn't make music so you could go check out Sam Cooke.
The first time I heard Sam Cooke was in the 'Malcom X' film. I was with my father, and that's the first time I heard his song. I remember my father telling me the story of Sam Cooke.
I like listening to old soul music. I like Sam Cooke. When I was growing up, the first things I was listening to was Whitney Houston and Cher. They were really big inspirations for me.
We'd play the American bases and found all these wonderful records by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke. Without American music, there would not have been a British Invasion.
I gave a Christmas party last year - well, two Christmases ago - where I did a Sam Cooke show. I didn't perform as R. Kelly. I performed the Sam Cooke show from 1964, when he performed at the Copacabana.
I'm an old soul. I like the Nat King Cole; Sam Cooke is my favorite singer of all time. But I'm into neo-soul; I'm into R&B. Some of the modern stuff appeals to me, but most of it comes from an older time.
I realize how much my life lines up with artists like Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. My sound comes from church, but the stories come from actual personal experience, being out there in the streets living life.
My father was very interested in music, and when he and his brothers were young, they had a singing group that used to open for Sam Cooke. There was always music in our house, but there wasn't much art around.
The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.
Brian Owens is a young guy from Ferguson, Missouri, my hometown, who I don't think emulates me at all, but I really enjoy his particular style. He kind of makes me think of the older school of soul singers like Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye.
In my vocal, I think you can hear something of my earlier times when I'd sing in subway halls for the echo and perform doo-wop on street corners. But I had a lot of influences, too - singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton.
My brothers and I had a gospel quartet, and that was the only music people listened to. But I was already gravitating towards songs by Sam Cooke, and then one day I put on a Jackie Wilson record, and baby, I was thrown right out of the house.
I grew up in a household in which they'd always play old skool classic R&B love songs - Al Green, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye... And my mom has even said that, when I was in her womb, she'd put the headphones to her stomach and play those songs to me!
I know a lot of people who are not here anymore, and I wonder why I'm still here... Not a day goes by that I don't think about Sam Cooke. His presence is so strong and so convincing to me, a true artist, a true talent, who never talked down to people.
I'm coming from a Ginuwine and Usher background: slow and smooth songs. And that's why I really connected to Sam Cooke, because he was just very smooth. It's not like the James Brown types, which is all great stuff, but he was totally set apart from those guys.
My dad sung and played piano. But he was also a man of God. He was a minister. So when Sam Cooke would come in town, you know, with The Soul Stirrers at that time, he was singing gospel, they would end up at my dad's church, and it would always be a guest singer for Sunday morning.
When I first played New York, it was with James Brown at the Apollo, and I was playing in a band under the name The Valentinos. I remember Sam Cooke saying, 'I want you to go in there with James Brown. I couldn't be as hard on you as James Brown would be.' But we came out marching like soldiers.
A lot of times, that's hard to capture: what you sound like in person versus what you sound like on record. If I had total control, I would do a lot of the old songs - not only my songs but Sam Cooke songs, Luther Vandross, melody songs. That's what I would really do if I had an opportunity to do a record.
I have been influenced by many different artists at many different stages of my life. Starting out, it was people like Elton John, Billy Joel, Ben Folds, and Fiona Apple. As I got older I got deeper into the work of bands like the Beatles, artists like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Etta James, and Joni Mitchell.
In my shows, I always try to incorporate music because it's the most natural way to set a tone. So if I want to do a show about depression, I use the opera. If I want to do a show about greed, I use spoken word. If I want to do a show about the injustice that's taking place in the world, I might play Sam Cooke.
I think maybe the vehicle for me was 'Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits.' It has a song called, 'Touch the Hem of His Garment.' Do you know that song? I kind of got obsessed with that song and started exploring and getting more of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers and really getting into that super, super deeply.
Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me. He left the gospel field at one point and went into the secular, and he had this huge hit, 'You Send Me.' Irma, my older sister, and I heard 'You Send Me' on the radio while we were driving through the South one night. We had to stop the car. We got out and danced around the car out on the highway.