Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm kind of a subtle person.
I love singing all types of genres.
I come from a lineage of ministers.
Surrender is working with what happens.
I want to record, tour, and just live life.
I always want to do good work and enjoy doing it.
I'm so grateful for just the inherent mercy of life.
So many great singers we know have come from the church.
I've followed my voice rather than forcing it to emerge.
I'd been trained in choral, gospel, and a little bit of opera.
It's hard to know who you are until you're cracked open a little bit.
Jazz has provided the framework for all the other stuff that I've done.
As I grow older, I hope I can fully embody my grandmother's remarkable peace.
I love songs that create moments that are very personal and that tell a story.
Everyone I perform and tour with looks out for each other; we ensure we stay healthy.
I didn't wait around for my parents' opinion about my venture out into contemporary music.
Just because I'm a recording artist doesn't mean I'm not an artist. Because I had to grow.
If I can make something real and it's appreciated and accessible to other people, I'm happy.
I've always loved the woods, and I've always loved gardening and a lot of solitude and quiet.
Jazz has a lot to do with being very present. You know the structure, then you flow through it.
I just want something that is real and that moves people. And just want to make something real.
Music is primal: when it's done without pretension, you can really feel the shape of someone's soul.
It's very hard for me to place myself alongside another artist. Everyone has something unique to express.
The women and the men are teachers and preachers in my family, and a little bit of both those fell on me.
Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience.
Making a record and being a touring artist is about cooperation between spirit, craft, emotion, and focus.
As a southern woman, we often define ourselves by who we are with. But I wanted my life to be built differently.
By high school, I was putting the music for the services together and teaching Sunday school to everybody's kids.
At 16, I was going to church and playing music for church, and Dad would only pay for piano lessons so I could play at church.
A lot of people in the African-American community are raised by grandmothers, and that relationship is a special bond and circle.
I think, as singers and performers, we are ambassadors of the human experience. I don't want to get bored just talking about myself.
I think living in a way that's close to nature makes you feel like that - makes you feel how thin the veil is between life and death.
What I like is not a particular genre, it's storytelling. There's a lot of great storytelling in jazz, and in folk and in country music.
The truth is, when you want a great show, it's not 'entertaining' the audience - it's you sharing with them... an experience of communion.
No matter what happens, I can go back to the mountains. I have nature and my wonderful friends and neighbors. I get so much by being there.
I am more prolific when I have something to respond to. I get my juice from people and real stories and things that seem common but are amazing.
Where I fit genre-wise, it's hard to tell. It's a fickle wind. But I have to believe there's always going to be a place for the songs inside of me.
Where I come from, music is not a business. Sharing music is a business, but music is not a business. It comes from the people and belongs to the people.
I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.
I'm not angry. I can't sing that loud for that long anyway, I'll start coughing - I don't have the instrument for it. I don't feel that emotional. I'm at peace.
I've always been genuinely interested in the spirit world. I've seen things I will never talk about because I'd be a fool to. You can't lay out that world in words.
I studied opera for a year at Georgia State University, but I wasn't interested in that meticulous, technical approach to music. So I left school and went back to jazz.
People are a lot more open than even they think they are. And I feel like I carry a heavy story about where I come from and those roots, but also what I like as a thinker.
I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation - that constant conversation and tension - I've always wanted in every genre and song that I perform.
I see 'Grace' as an affectionate refusal of things that just aren't true. With all our power and money and influence, we still can't raise up high over people's consciousness.
My mom has a couple great tricks, but my father is consistently a good cook. He's extremely avid about health and fitness and a bit obsessive. He always talks about garden-fresh food.
I live just above a creek, and it's always very active. It almost sounds like the ocean. It's constant, and there's lots of big rocks in it, so it's got a great sound. It's one of my favorite things.
There's a beautiful, kind of seductive trap in being autobiographical in our writing of songs: We just get stuck in our own syrup, and it's so personal that it almost can be embarrassing to the listener.
I call myself a singer-songwriter influenced by the gospel and jazz tradition. Naturally, because of my lifestyle and love for nature, there's a lot of folk and Americana there because that's just my life.
I'd listen to the radio, especially when my parents were out on house calls to pray for people - you know, shut-ins. Sometimes, if we were incredibly sneaky, we could do it at night when everyone was asleep.