Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
All the Southerners think we're Yanks, and all the Yanks think we're Southerners, and all the Midwesterners think we're East. Everybody's always wrong about Louisville. That's kind of why I love it so much.
Those people who shun us just because of the label we're on, or the fact that we've got a video out there that's getting us somewhere, are only limiting themselves, because they aren't keeping an open mind.
It's a beautiful thing to have time in the world, as a singer and as a musician, to make friends with people of the musical caliber of a Tommy Smith, an Arturo Sandoval, a Richard Galliano, a Till Broenner.
There are some singers that have great technique and then there are those that have a certain quality or style in their voice. Some have both, like Freddie Mercury, but to me, I prefer style over technique.
Whatever it is Christ said doesn't get a fair shake. There's not much written, it was done 150 years later, and it was used to create an empire. So can we get rid of all that and just see what the guy said?
The people need to feel the music. That's what's so important, and that's what is missing. You have to let the audience feel you, you have to let them feel the love, feel the rock 'n' roll, feel the energy.
That was the big lesson for all of us. Everything was going great on paper, but we all became miserable because we were so caught up in the machinery of how you make that happen, it took away the sheer joy.
They make this drink in Brazil Called cachaca. It's sugar can alcholho. Costs 35 cents a quart. One quart of that stuff and you see God. Two quarts and you graow a pair of tight pants and an electric guitar.
While I'm working on something, every single part of me is in it. But then, once it's done, I leave that place behind. I usually don't like to revisit it. So it's almost like listening to a different person.
Some view mental illness as a purely spiritual issue and deny the need for medication or other forms of treatment. Others view it as an illness with no spiritual aspect. I believe it's a combination of both.
I'll only pick up my guitar if something is knocking on the door. Once the melodies have sort of been bothering me for a time, then I pick up my guitar and try to find them. But only if they want to be found.
I've had statements made - 'Who in the heck wants to hear a 60-year-old singer?' That statement was made - it's disheartening, you know, because you say, 'Well, hey, why should a guy feel like that about it?'
For better or for worse, I think my approach to jazz is very traditional, in one sense, but is [also] very out of fashion today. It's about the musicians, and it's about that magic that happens in the moment.
Peacock bass like to hide at ambush points, away from the strong canal currents. If you fish early and know those peacock hangouts, you will have little or no trouble catching peacocks on lures and live bait.
Sometimes melody and sometimes lyrics. It depends on the tempo and feel of the song. Slower pieces usually begin with melody and faster ones with lyrics. I write for the song and it leads me to my conclusion.
The downloads, the licensing, commercials, radio - it's made me more money than any song I've ever written, and it only went to No. 26. It wasn't a big hit at all. But it's a career song ["I Can't Drive 55"].
Suffering is seldom an item on our list of requests to the Lord. But when it crosses our path and we are able by his grace to keep on walking, our lives become messages of hope to the world and to the church.
I can't express how wonderful it is to get feedback when you've been sort of in a bubble working on something and then you release it to the world and hope for the best. It's like the birth of a musical baby.
With anything you do and you dedicate yourself to and you dedicate thousands and thousands of hours, eventually you're gonna get a little bit better at it unless there's some innate impairment preventing that.
The [2012 covers album] 2120 [South Michigan Ave.] was different. We covered a lot of classics there. But most of the time when we did it I always prided myself on digging up obscure songs that no one knew of.
When I was in my formative years, I rejected Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin. I now realise they were all great artists, but at the time, as a young man, you have to clear the decks.
When we arrive at the studio, we put the kettle on, have a cup of tea, say, 'How's the family? You still got that old car? Is that dog still alive?' and then we start jamming. That's how the songs get written.
I've taken regular gigs, I've worked in grocery stores, worked as a dishwasher, a porter in different places, all for survival. I don't feel bad about doing it. I wished I could have done better. And still do.
Our goal is to write memorable songs. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer. Each time we sit down to write, we have hopes of coming up with something that will be remembered forever. That's our dream.
We have always appealed to people outside of the mainstream. Constantly, we get people coming up to us and saying, 'I was just the freakiest one in high school. I was the only one who kept playing the B-52's.'
I met the [Frank] Sinatra family for a [performance] I did for his hundredth birthday and one of the first things Sinatra's daughters said to me was, "I'm so glad you make your own beautiful arrangements now."
Saddam's fate should be in the hands of his country men. They were the major victims of his brutal reign and should decide his life, death, or permanent imprisonment. Personally, I would lock him away forever.
There are five kids in my family and I'm the only one who didn't get a diploma. All the kids got their diplomas hanging in my father's room and I got my gold records. I'd say he was more proud of the diplomas.
But it was great, we sit in the same dressing room where, like, Johnny Cash sat and Willie Nelson and all those guys. That was in itself something amazing - I was on the same space these guys stood on, ya know?
I certainly never doubted the ability for the guys to get together and make good music, but there was so much legal business with the record company that it ended up being like five albatrosses around our neck.
I connect emotionally to these songs. I mean what I say when I say it, and that allows your audience to connect. That's the number-one reason why any music is successful, because you make people feel something.
People want it to be red, like blood. It's kind of funny. When I used to throw meat into the audience, I'd get letters from kids' mothers saying, "What's the best way to get blood stains out of my son's shirt?"
If we mistake God's silence for indifference, we are the most miserable of people. If we give up when we no longer understand, we reject His caring, steadfast love and cut ourselves off from our only real hope.
Here's a little song I wrote You might want to sing it note for note Don't worry, be happy In every life we have some trouble But when you worry you make it double Don't worry, be happy Don't worry, be happy now
If I can bring joy into the world, if I can get people to stop thinking about their pain for a moment, or the fact the tomorrow morning they're going to get up and tell their boss off... then I'll be successful.
It seems like the record industry made so much crazy money in the 1960s that everyone wanted to get in on it. Now it's just become very corporate. So all of these people who despise music end up being in charge.
I was an avid collector of Elvis' early stuff; for a young singer, he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper. It's the same as being in school - you learn by copying the maestro.
My grandad was an opera singer, my uncle a jazz musician; I was a boy soprano in the church choir. But the first performance with Deep Purple was something I'll never forget. All elements were working brilliantly.
I'm not talking about just Donald Trump's politics - it's what he's brought up. It's a real conversation. We're just people trying to fall in love as nations and human beings. We need therapy, man. The world does.
Having two boys of my own who I love more than I'll ever love myself, I can't tell you how crushing it would be if they couldn't feel that they could tell their father that they were gay - or different in any way.
Be careful what you say if you wouldn't want it broadcast everywhere - because you never know. My basic advice would be - for trust - is: Live the way you ought to live - all the time - as much as you can help it.
I don't like being the focus of attention. It makes me very uncomfortable. And it's part of the reason I never look at videos of myself, or I very rarely listen to my music or even read things that I might've said.
It's hard to say what an album is about - because each one is usually about a lot of things to me, but then I hope it also can mean a lot of different things to someone else. That's the beautiful thing about music.
'The Muppet Show' was huge. I watched it all the time as a kid, and I really loved the way they used music on that. I also remember hearing the radio in the car as a kid, like Stevie Wonder and Simon and Garfunkel.
I was pissed off about a lot of things...so much shitty rock ’n’ roll that angered me, and Pussy Galore was kicking against that. With the Blues Explosion, there was some of that, but now I was into celebrating it.
The other songs [of Billie Holiday] - "Body and Soul" is like the standard - I also wanted some songs that I knew I would sound good on, as a producer. It's been the same nine songs since I debuted it back in 2012.
The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.
Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I'm a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.
To me, 'Crash Love' is the most stripped-down record that we've made since the early Nineties, and I would say that 'I Hope You Suffer' is indicative of the overall tone of this record in being the opposite of that.
You gotta learn the alphabet, backwards and forwards. And then the choice is yours, 'cause last I looked, the Bible is written in the same words, the exact same alphabet, as my favorite pornography. Choice is yours.