Top 50 Aaron Neville Quotes

Every day, some act of kindness comes my way, even if it’s just someone opening the door. It happens every day if you keep an eye out for it. Keeping an eye out, that’s the key.

When I sang, I couldn’t help making those little curves. People would say, ‘Why don’t you sing straight?’ But I have always had to put something in.

I’m waiting for them to come up with a ‘Star Trek’ thing so they can beam me from my house to the gigs and back.

I was very surprised when I heard that I had been chosen to receive the James Cardinal Gibbons Award.

The first time I recorded without Allen Toussaint, I wanted to do doo-wop. Everything I’ve done since then has got some kind of doo-wop essence in it.

I’ve had problems with my throat over the years, playing with loud bands for years, and I’ve had bruised vocal chords and nodules.

We used to play football on the levee, with no shirts on in the summer – August in New Orleans – and my skin would turn red. They’d call me Redskin, Red Apache, then it turned around to Apache Red.

The extras are a nice bonus feature, but the main incentive is the musical experience.

My mother turned me onto St. Jude back in the days when I was wild and crazy. She took me to the shrine on Rampart Street.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, I wake up with a song in my head, and I have to finish it so I can fall back asleep.

There are so many songs in my heart and in my brain. I wake up at 2 in the morning, and I have to get up and sing them. There are so many of them, it’s ridiculous.

My drummer, bass player, and guitar player sing backgrounds. They play and sing. I can sing all the harmonies, but I can’t do it alone.

In New Orleans, music is part of the culture. You’re raised with it, from the cradle to the grave, and all in-between.

I really like listening to music in my car.

Age and numbers are a concept made up by man.

So now I have a collection of poetry by Aaron Neville and I give it to people I want to share it with. I’d like to publish it someday.

When I’m singing, it’s a mixture of my innocence in the projects, my mom and dad. It’s all the good and the bad, the laughs and the frowns that I went through and seen other people go through. Then you be trying to write it. Whatever’s coming out, you try and make it all cool.

My brother Art was a doo-wopper. He had a group that sat out on a park bench in New Orleans and sang harmonies at night, and they’d go around and win all the talent shows and get all the girls, you know.

I just sing what I feel in my heart. I ain’t trying to prove nothing, and I don’t think I ever did.

I’ll be singing with The Blind Boys of Alabama, which is a great joy to me. I’ve done some work with them before, and they truly are amazing.

Ain’t no place like New Orleans. It’s one of kind.

I sing around the house, in the shower.

I know that God is good, and he saved me from hell and damnation.

People are living a lot longer these days and not preparing for it. I’m in the gym and, you know, using my voice.

Without faith, I don’t think I’d be here.

My brothers and I would sit out on the park bench and harmonize.

I think things happened the way they did for a reason.

I even done a doo-wop version of the Mickey Mouse march.

When I was living in the projects, I had a mop stick for my horse. I wanted to be Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, so I would ride my mop through the projects.

The gospel music and doo-wop is what has informed me personally.

I don’t want to be on the road all my life.

When I get down to Louisiana, I get to have a taste of some of that great food.

Be honest, be nice, be a flower not a weed.

Doo-wop is the true music to me, man. Doo-wop was what nurtured me and grew me into who I am, and I guess even when I was in school, the teacher probably thought I had ADD or something every day, because I’d be beating on the desks, singing like the Flamingos or the Spaniels or Clyde McPhatter or somebody.

I buried Joel on our 48th anniversary. I had been with her since I was 16.

Don Was is a friend of mine; we’ve done projects together over the years.

Working with the brothers can put pressure on my voice, so I choose to do my own solo thing so I can save my voice. I couldn’t do both now. The Neville Brothers is a funk band; they play loud, and I have a strong voice.

I might see something on TV and get inspired to write about it. I can’t sit down and plan to write. It has to come to me in my head like someone telling me the words.

You’ve just got to sing, do some kind of singing every day. Early mornings and cold weather can mess with that. I drink special teas with cayenne pepper, but I think you’re psyching yourself out, really.

When I first went out on the road with Larry Williams, there was also, like, The Coasters, The Drifters, and The Flamingos.

My friends and I were wild and we liked to joy-ride.

‘Yellow Moon’ was a poem. My wife at the time, Joel – she’s dead now – it was our 25th anniversary. She had the chance to go on a cruise with her sister. And I’m home with the kids and looking up, and I saw the big moon, and I just started writing.

Until I went to rehab, I didn’t understand what it did.

But I knew if I ran I’d never be able to sing, so I had to take my punishment.

I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.

I remember going up and doing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ with Paul Simon, Santana playing up there with us.

When I record something, I’ll take a drive and just listen.

I eat a lot of fish to stay healthy.

I never left doo wop.

I worked with the Neville Brothers for 40-some years on the highway, and up and down since I can remember – funk from New Orleans.