Tin Pan Alley Quotes

• It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Lying, Lines

  Duke Ellington (1973). “Music is my mistress”, Doubleday Books

  36 Copy quote

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• There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

  Branford Marsalis

  Song, Records, Alleys

  7 Copy quote

• Then on to all the terrific american songwriters, from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles, from Bob Dylan to Paul Simon. Whoever wrote and sang in the song form I have appreciated.

  Tom Chapin

  Song, Bob, Appreciated

  7 Copy quote

• The words to country songs are very earthy like the blues. They're not as dressed up and the people are very honest and say, 'Look, I miss you darlin', so I went out and got drunk in this bar.' That's the way you say it. Where in Tin Pan Alley they would say, 'Oh I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and had a dinner for one.' That's cleaned up now, you see? But country and blues tells it like it is.

  Ray Charles

  Country, Song, People

  21 Copy quote

• Back then, the business depended on bohemians. ... They needed Kristofferson and Roger Miller ..It was the tail end of something...the last Tin Pan Alley. ...and we were the night shift! They gave us keys, because they knew the best songs weren't written in daylight.... We got our keys taken away several times...me and Guy Clark.

  Steve Earle

  Song, Taken, Writing

  6 Copy quote

• I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.

  John C. Reilly

  Song, Dad, Kids

  5 Copy quote

• I was at the Apollo Theater all the time, skipping school, and I worked in a barbershop. That's how I started with doo-wop. Now I've come full circle. I did all kinds of music. I used to work on Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.

  George Clinton

  School, Circles, Apollo

  16 Copy quote

• In the, uh, '30s and '40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City. I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.

  Al Kooper

  New York, Believe, Cities

  "Rock and Roll". "Shakespeares in the Alley", openvault.wgbh.org. September 1995.

  4 Copy quote

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