Apollo Records signed me for my gospel ability.
Solomon Burke

As you grow older, you learn to understand life a little better.
Solomon Burke

But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do.
Solomon Burke

I didn't do the marching down the streets, jumping in front of the lines and holding hands... that wasn't me.
Solomon Burke

I didn't need to borrow money from the record company, because if I had my own publishing company, and I had my own writers, I'd have enough to get and do whatever I wanted to do.
Solomon Burke

I didn't need to depend on the record company to publish my records.
Solomon Burke

I don't need to make a fortune, I need to survive.
Solomon Burke

I should have my own publishing companies.
Solomon Burke

I walked out of the Chinese restaurant with a fat check, a record deal, and a box of shrimp egg foo yung!
Solomon Burke

I want to be a soul singer.
Solomon Burke


I was signed to MGM. I was in Vegas for sixteen weeks at the Sands Hotel.
Solomon Burke

I'm still amazed people remembered and didn't give up on me.
Solomon Burke

If we could buy these properties and then invest in the Black community, with our own McDonald's, with our own Kentucky Fried Chickens, it was gonna be a great move.
Solomon Burke

Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.
Solomon Burke

My manager was Buddy Glee, who put me together with Mike Curb, and was basically the idea to bring some soul to the label and bring something different to the label besides the Hank Williams situation.
Solomon Burke

Sometimes its controversy, but we all have our choices that we make.
Solomon Burke

That was my choice at that time, and I still say Nixon was a great president. A very beautiful and wise man.
Solomon Burke

The deals that were made for Black artists at that time were not the deals that were made for white artists.
Solomon Burke

The secret was to just be cool, stay in God's graces, and work it out.
Solomon Burke

We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.
Solomon Burke