Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke
Solomon Burkewas an American preacher and singer, who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s and a "key transitional figure in the development of soul music from rhythm and blues. He had a string of hits including "Cry to Me", "If You Need Me", "Got to Get You Off My Mind", "Down in the Valley" and "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love". Burke was referred to as "King Solomon",...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionR&B Singer
Date of Birth21 March 1940
CityPhiladelphia, PA
CountryUnited States of America
I learned a great deal from Atlantic. Atlantic taught me how to walk in this life of music, it taught me how to fall and how to get myself back up.
The difference is I get a chance to say hello instead of goodbye, ... I get a chance to say it's so good to know we're still here with an opportunity to make it better, somehow, some way, for somebody besides ourselves. And how important it is to realize that we're not alone.
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.
Sometimes its controversy, but we all have our choices that we make.
Girls were coming from every angle. I couldn't love them all. But I tried.
Im still amazed people remembered and didnt give up on me.
One of us is chained, none of us is free.
I was signed to MGM. I was in Vegas for sixteen weeks at the Sands Hotel.
Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.
Apollo Records signed me for my gospel ability.
As you grow older, you learn to understand life a little better.
I didn't do the marching down the streets, jumping in front of the lines and holding hands... that wasn't me.
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.
I don't need to make a fortune, I need to survive.