Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was constantly being pushed toward a European ideal of what it means to be a classical or opera singer, let's say in the Renata Tebaldi mode. I reject that.
There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.
I've wanted to perform my entire life. I found a paper I wrote in kindergarten class about what I wanted to be when I grew up - and I wrote 'a famous singer!'
It's taken me to be an older guy, an old man, to have an old man's voice. Because I only liked old men's voices. As a kid, I didn't like pip-squeaked singers.
I thought I sang - it's OK - it's so hard to sing! Singing - I had no idea. I'd get fatigued at the end of a phrase - the amount of respect I have for singers!
Ian and Sylvia, who, when you got right down to it, were essentially country and western singers. I just recorded his Four Strong Winds. It's a wonderful song.
Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.
I didn't say I wasn't gonna do rockabilly. I just said I ain't gonna sing no song that ain't a country song. I won't be known as anything but a country singer.
In addition, I'm finishing a track for the movie 'Waking Up In Reno', but there are numerous other singers I look forward to recording with in the near future.
I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It's not that I don't want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.
A singer has got a different attitude, they're they're so whacked out they don't know what they're doing half the time. Singers, they don't, they're spoiled too.
I think that freshness and that innocence is something that is missing from a lot of female singers. I'm certainly not denying that I'm young, but I'm not fluff.
Everybody I've ever seen live sings out of tune, even the greatest singers in the world. And of course if you make a single nowadays, they'll autotune it anyway.
I'm not a great lover of Madonna's voice. She's done very well with what she's got, and I'm sure my voice turns her right off, but she's not my favourite singer.
Thanks to many great K-pop singers, the groundwork has been laid for more Korean songs to be readily accessible to an overseas audience via channels like YouTube.
When I started making my own records, I had this idea of drowning out the singer and putting the rest in the foreground. It was the background that interested me.
The only thing is, with me - this may sound weird - there are a lot of R&B singers from that era that I actually don't know. Like, I never grew up on Boyz II Men.
There's a lot that goes into training, singers to eventually become performers. There's, projection, uh, which in many cases the artist was never concerned about.
I couldn't do the heavy rock thing anymore. Noddy Holder was around kicking every singer in the ***. I never wanted to be a pop singer. Christ, how I hated Noddy!
I'm not a singer, a walking instrument like Aretha Franklin. When you get an Iggy Pop record, you don't get "Iggy Sings." I am also a style of music, an approach.
I have the background singers of Ray Charles, the background singers of Smokey Robinson, and the background singers of Barry White and I built a choir around that.
On stage, generally speaking, the story is stopped or held back by songs, because that's the convention. Audiences enjoy the song and the singer, that's the point.
Dorsey played the upright bass and steel guitar, as well as acoustic guitar. Johnny played acoustic guitar and together they were fabulous songwriters and singers.
It may be that my most helpful contributions to music aren't my compact discs but my articles about other great singers of the past for American Heritage magazine.
Jazz radio is not very friendly to pop singers who decide to make a jazz record. But a lot of people have been. A lot of the people I've talked to like the record.
If you're talking triple threat of a writer, singer and actress, that would probably be Beyoncé. If Aaliyah were still here, she and Beyoncé would be neck and neck.
All kids, when they go to school, are pretty good artists and dancers and singers and poets. All that gets buried, basically through being educated, or brainwashed.
The way I see it, my blood, sweat, and tears are not just for me; it's for Fifth Harmony as well. We have been blessed. Most groups have lead singers, but we don't.
My favorite singers in the world have been black singers, and you can go to any church and hear the best singers in the world - and I'm a singer, and I love singing!
Mozart is always a bit of a challenge - you know, even though it is often given to very young singers, it is actually the most complicated to sing in many instances.
I was lucky enough to first meet Elvis at his house in Bel Air and he used to invite different artists, singers and musicians, to come and jam with him at his house.
It's OK if Tim McGraw goes and does a movie, and it's OK if Justin Timberlake does a movie, but it's not OK for an actor to become a singer. I never understood that.
We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.
I've tried to learn as much as I can about the great jazz singers to understand what makes them important, vital artists, but there is always something more to learn.
This trend used to exist in Bengali playback where singers and composers would have their own hit series. I am thrilled that Bengal is seeing a revival of that trend.
When I was younger I was interested in fame. Lots of kids want to be actors and singers and stuff and it's fun to be recognized and fun to have pictures taken of you.
We singers have a different level of responsibility from other musicians. We have words that we must convey; we have meanings that we must convey through these lyrics.
It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black.
The greatest impact of 'We Are the World' seems to have been the video, which lets us see the singers take their turns at the microphone without any sense of star ego.
Looking back at those great singers like Gordon MacRae and Howard Keel - they have such a specific kind of style that it seems like we don't really appreciate anymore.
I feel blessed and lucky that some of the film industry's most magical and iconic songs where legendary composers and singers have collaborated have been filmed on me.
I feel that if Bollywood singers focus on non-film music as well... like this EP 'Naina,' which has songs sung by Sonu Nigam and Devender Pal Singh, it is really good.
Why would I give up so much to just be another singer or another person doing what he loves? I'm out here doing everything to the best of my capability to be the best.
There have always been female artists and singers putting bands together all the time. But we were not always getting credit for that because we didn't know any better.
I think the 'R&B singer' title came from me entering the business at a time when R&B chick singers were the trend. I was fine with that, but I have a lot more to offer.
I enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. I became attracted to singer-songwriters. I became interested in them as people; was curious about what they wanted to say.
It seems like people get afraid of a certain music if they can't pigeonhole it to their satisfaction... Good music is good music, and that should be enough for anybody.
My mentor was Clara Ward of the famous Ward gospel singers of Philadelphia. And my dad was my coach. He coached me. And just my natural love for music is what drove me.
I've grown from being around other singers. I've learned not to be afraid. A part of that is from writing my own songs and discovering how to tell my own story properly.