People often ask me why I sing with a strong Irish accent. I suppose when I was five years old, I spoke with a strong Irish accent, so I sang with one, too.
I was 6, and I was in the opera ‘Carmen.’ My dad sang opera and got me into the children’s chorus. I was super fat at the time and didn’t make eye contact with anyone. I knew I loved acting ever since.
I’ve conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I’ve sang and danced at La Scala!
In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you’d go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you’d learn to sing a lot of songs.
I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.
My father was an interpreter for all the Latin American pilots at the naval base. He was very well educated. My mother was a hairdresser who sang every day.
There were a lot of lyrics that I sang but didn’t understand. But I had this facade in performance of looking like I wrote the book.
I learned by listening to other people sing and doing impressions of them. And there are things no one can ever teach you, like phrasing. By listening to Sinatra, for instance – you felt that everything he sang had happened in his life.
I played djembe, percussion, keyboards and I sang.
I’ll tell you, my dad played and sang, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that playing a guitar was a whole lot better than getting ahold of a hoe handle or chopping cotton, man.
I do know that on my mom’s side, my uncle sang and had a gospel group. He also had a radio show he would do on Sundays with his quartet.
I sang ‘O Holy Night’ with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake – a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the music.
In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.
I always sang Leona Lewis covers, and if you know her songs, she’s not just singing your average easy song; she’s going off the majority of the time.
I painted. I wanted to be a painter. I sang.
I began with dance, doing ballet at 3, then tap, jazz, modern. Then I sang in church choirs, learned how to play clarinet and drums, sang with rock bands and only then did I get into musical theatre.
I feel like I have to create the Keith Whitley sound. That doesn’t mean I can’t borrow from the people I grew up listening to, but it doesn’t serve any purpose to sing the same kind of songs they sang. When you do that, it’s going to come out sounding like an imitation, whether it’s meant to or not.
I was born into a household where my aunt, grandmother and mother lived their music. They all sang harmony, and by the time I was 2, I could sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ in three-part harmony.
There have always been poets who performed. Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.
Madeline Kahn is one of my favourite people in the entire world and one of the funniest. She was a talented Broadway star and also sang opera.
I only sang bhajans from 4 to 16 years.
I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.
I sang in bands as a kid. In high school, I was already on the road doing a single. And that’s no fun. Then came ‘Wonder Woman’ and children.
When I was in high school, I was a bad singer. I mean, all my early acting was musical theater, and my first ever show was ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’ Everyone’s familiar with it. I played priest number 3 and sang so out of tune that it’s not even funny.
My mother was the only musician. She played piano and she sang. She also played saxophone. And she played at home a lot.
I had this one audition – I won’t say the casting director’s name, but she was on the phone the whole time I sang. I was literally doing my audition, and she was on the phone. So I guess whatever it is she was ordering for lunch was more important than the high C’s I was belting out.
I sang so many beautiful compositions, but ‘Rockstar’ was indeed magic.
I grew up in the era of Britney Spears, where artists had songs written for them, and you got up and sang them. That’s how I always thought it was.
I sang and wrote songs when I was 12 years old.
When I was eight, my piano teacher played seven or eight notes, and I sang them. She stopped and looked at me in shock! That was the first time I’d gotten that reaction. I’d had looks of horror, but never shock in a positive way.
Writing ‘Dog Stars’ was coming home. My spirit just sang. It’s what I wanted to do my whole life.
I was 16 when I was in a band, for about 10 minutes. I went off and did acting after that. So it was a wee moment for me when I sang.
I saw Kim Nam Ju and Yu Jun Sang sing ‘Trouble Maker’ on ‘Unexpected You,’ and my mother really liked it. That’s why it’s the most memorable.
I come from probably many generations of singers because my grandmother had a really incredible voice and sang in church. And my mother had a gorgeous voice and was always singing around the house.
I always sang in school choirs and went on tours to other countries. I have always loved it. It’s a very communal thing, and you really connect with people.
I sang ‘Nessun Dorma’ twice with Pavarotti, and he told me he’d heard ‘Smoke’ about five or six times, and every time was different. He was so jealous because if he deviated one jot from the traditional interpretation of the famous arias, he’d be crucified. We have the freedom.
I was probably six years old when I first sang before an audience.
Salman liked my song ‘Humko Pyaar Hua’ from ‘Ready’ and asked me to try a romantic number for ‘Dabangg 2.’ After the recording, both Salman and Arbaaz Khan liked the way I sang the number and finalized my rendition for the film.
I went to see England against Switzerland at Wembley with my dad and brother, too. That was in 2008, Fabio Capello’s first game in charge. Jermaine Jenas scored, and we won 2-1. I remember the national anthem was incredible. I sang it with pride – always do.
Few of us boggle – though we should – at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists.
I’ve always wanted to be a musician. I love music; like, I probably sang when I was born.
I’m the first has-been star singer ever to sing with the circus. I mean, Presley sang with the circus, but that was before he became a star.
I was in bands many years ago, so that’s where it started. I played in bands, sang backing vocals and all the rest of it.
I sang barber shop harmony and sort of got into performing. And it just came naturally. Then, when I was in college after the war, I did a play, ‘Pygmalion,’ by George Bernard Shaw. And from then on, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
I have been singing since childhood and, over the years, sang songs from different languages from India and across the globe.
While my father sang, Pedroza stared at me. By that time my eye pupils were staring at him, too, like a terrier that’s got hold of a fox.
I had something nobody else could do – I sang in a way that separated me – and, when you’re trying to get noticed, you play your trump card.
I grew up with music in the house. I was told I could sing as soon as I started talking. Everybody in my family sang, always lots of records, blues and jazz and soul, R&B, you know, like Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Coltrane, that kind of thing.
By the second time I sang by myself in school, I just realized that I was more in control of my environment than I had ever been before.
I’m proud to say I was part of a movement in which we sang ‘All You Need Is Love’ at political rallies.
I was known as a ballad singer who sang melodramatic heavily produced ballads. I’m not known as a mid-tempo singer who does fun songs. I’m not going to do a song like ‘Dancing on the Ceiling.’
I think the first big thing I did: I sang at my mom’s wedding when I was almost 8, so 7… that was my first thing.
My mom and dad sang in the church choir. They also had a local group. They loved music, especially my dad.
I wrote my own pop songs and sang one of them when I went into a stupid beauty competition when I was 16. That was my public debut, and it made my mother even more determined that I should go into opera!
I sacrifice in my love life and my social life, but those things will be there in three or four years. This is a really important time in my life. I can’t just be the girl who sang ‘I Kissed a Girl.’ I have to leave a legacy.
Two decades later, Gary Jules sang ‘Mad World’ for the film ‘Donnie Darko’ and got the Christmas No 1 in 2003. That was probably the proudest moment of my career.
I never sang for a Grammy, for money, for fame. That’s my whole purpose for singing: for people, for the fans.
I started running because my neighbour, Patrick Sang, was an athlete and I wanted to be just like him. Patrick came from the same village as I do and my mother used to be his teacher. I was so inspired by his success.
I was shy: I sang at home but not in public. My dad’s side of the family sang, so I would hear their voices and think mine couldn’t compare.
