In high school, I had two friends that were suffering from cancer. I would go and sing for them while they were in hospital, and I sang at their services after they passed.
At school, I enjoyed playing the bassoon. I was in the orchestra and played the melody when the other boys sang hymns at prayers time.
I sang ‘American Pie’ a lot in my stage set. It had a knack of uniting an audience in a sing-along. It’s a clever song about American history but wrapped in a fantastic tune.
‘Crash’ is the hardest song I’ve ever sang in my whole life. It’s the lowest in my vocal register and the highest in my register, all within 15 seconds.
People ask if my parents are hippies, but they’re actually very conservative. A girl called Rebel sang at their wedding, and that’s where my name came from.
The biggest surprise to people is that I sang background on Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album.
I knew that I wanted to sing right from the age of four, and till I was 16, I only sang at Mata ki Chowkis.
One day, when I was still living at home, a friend told ‘Texas’ Jean Valli about me. She was originally from Syracuse, N.Y., and lived in New Jersey but sang country. One night, she had me come up on stage where she was performing. I sang ‘My Mother’s Eyes,’ and she was knocked out.
I really liked one girl and asked her out 22 times, but she always said no. Finally I sang to her, and she said she’d go out with me.
I sang on Church Street, every place that had a stage.
Feminism… I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, ‘Free to be You and Me.’
My dad was a huge country music fan, but he also had a band and he sang. So he’d listen to a lot of music and the songs that he’d learn for the band were more from the male artists. So my earliest country memories were Waylon Jennings, Conway Twitty, George Jones, Johnny Paycheck even.
In my early days, I sang rock stuff, but the career didn’t kick until ’67.
My chutzpah was me singing to Mario Lanza. So Mario looked at me after I talk-sang ‘Be My Love’ for the first time; he took the lyric out of my hand as contemptuously as you can take a lyric out of someone’s hand, and he sang ‘Be My Love’ back at me.
I always used to sing in the house and I went to school at Hywel Dda Primary School in Ely. I think they had a puppet-type show there and word got around I could sing. I sang at that puppet performance and used to sing in school. From there, it was in my blood. I didn’t want to do anything else but sing.
I don’t come from a unit family; I come from a Sang Parivar, Swayam Sevak family.
I studied and sang lot of jazz when I was growing up. I think that plays a little bit into some of the things I do vocally, notes that I pick in chords.
I’m influenced a lot by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, even Paul Weller – Billie Holiday as well: People who wrote and sang songs that were reflective of their times. I quite like that. I quite admire that.
I sang in ‘Waiting for Guffman,’ and I sang in ‘A Mighty Wind.’ I can carry a tune, but I don’t like that Broadway singing.
I was shy. But when I sang I felt really empowered.
President Clinton, I sang at his post-inauguration party out in Maryland.
The first thing I remember writing was a poem – about a princess who sat on a hill and sang all day – when I was eight.
When Elvis sang, it almost sounded like he was whispering. But after you heard the record, his voice was the strongest thing you ever heard. He was incredible.
‘The Last Five Years,’ we sang almost everything live. When we’re in a convertible on the West Side Highway, there was no point – it’s not going to be usable sound. But any time we were indoors, we were singing live.
I knew it was time to get off of reality TV when someone asked me if I sang as well as acted.
As singers, we’re always taught to sing forward and place everything in the front of our resonating chambers. Donna Summer always sang in that space and had it naturally. Her muscle memory, the way she was built – she was a natural singer.
I sang in a group for four years, and you just kind of get used to it. You don’t really think about being by yourself.
The ‘Daughter of the Regiment’ that I did in Boston was vintage Sarah Caldwell, which is to say it was brilliant. Before my career was over, I’m sure I sang the role of Marie at least a hundred times, often in productions that cost a fortune, but none touched hers.
That’s my only active wish. I think if I sang like Don Henley, this would be a lot more agreeable business.
I went to this little performing arts school in downtown Phoenix. You had to dance or act, and everyone sang in choir. I started out playing the saxophone, but I always wanted to be in an orchestra. That was a dream as a kid, and there aren’t a lot of saxophones in an orchestra.
The first time I sang in front of an audience, I was about 14 – it was at my guitar school’s showcase, and there were about 30 people there. I was so nervous, but I did it.
My mother did play classical piano, not that well. And actually, my father sang with the big bands – he sang with Bob Crosby’s band – but he had to give up show business when his father died. He had to come back to Montgomery and take over the furniture store.
Most of those takes were one take. I made those records in three minutes. I didn’t have time to get nervous or scared the first time I sang it. It was all ‘live’ and I enjoyed it so much.
When I was a teeny little girl, I was in dancing school, and I sang.
In high school, I was so painfully self-aware that how I thought of myself was probably very different from what other people thought of me. I thought of myself as just painfully awkward and dorky. I had a lot of hair and was kind of weird. I sang a lot in the hallways.
Though I played classical piano since age 5 and sang in a cappella groups, being an artist didn’t seem like something I was talented enough to do full time. So I kind of buried that dream.
I used to be someone that needed nine hours of sleep; otherwise, I didn’t think I was going to sound good when I sang, and I was very disciplined and anal about my preparation. When you become a parent, there just isn’t that time, you know?
We started out when I was 6 years old. We played ukuleles and sang Everly Brothers songs.
I went to watch Coldplay in Florida and saw Chris Martin before they went on. He sang ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ before the chorus of ‘Yellow’ kicked in. That was so strange because he’s an inspiration for me. I think he’s so good, he’s sick… he’s a really nice guy too.
When we first started, I didn’t know there was Christian rock or Christian music. I just thought we were a rock band that stuck to our convictions… Like every other hardcore band out there sang or screamed what they thought, we did the same thing.
My first song was ‘So Sick,’ which was my first number one as an artist, and I turned the mic around to the crowd, and they sang the whole song. Every lyric. That was my first experience with the power of music.
We performed ‘Road of Resistance’ at O2 Academy Brixton in London for the first time in the fall of 2014. I still remember how the British audience sang this song with us although it was a world premiere. In other words, the song ‘Road of Resistance’ really propelled us to move forward.
My grandfather was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who lived in Northern Ireland and apparently when he sang in the synagogue he made everyone cry.
My mum, Olwen, was a bright and talkative woman who loved a gossip and a story and was given slightly to malapropisms. And she was Welsh, so, of course, she sang.
A lot of people know that I danced, but I also sang.
The first time I ever sang in front of a crowd of people was, like, 10,000 people in Japan at a skating exhibition.
I was about 10 when I first began to sing. My mother had been away for three weeks, and I learned ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.’ When she came back, I sang it in front of her, my auntie Linda, my father, my uncle Jim, and my grandmother.
I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that’s all. You sang other people’s songs. That’s all there were.
I never really sang for anyone, apart from in the shower or with my best friend. I was shy. I didn’t want to take voice lessons. I knew I could sing, but I just didn’t tell anyone.
I dreamed of a future as a muscular, tanned, kibbutznik, who plowed the fertile fields of the Jezreel Valley in the day, sang religiously in the dining hall in the evening, and fiercely guarded the farmland at night, riding a noble horse.
The idea of a new hero for a new day sang to me.
If the club was empty, I sang to the chairs.
I even sang once at the opening of a supermarket. You name it, I’ve done it.
I’ve never really focused on if I had good habits when I sang or if I had bad habits, or if I was breathing correctly. So, I started doing vocal exercises and would stretch out before I sang, stuff to help my breathing. It’s funny, you breathe your whole life then you find out you’re not doing it correctly.
When I was a little bitty kid, I was listening to the stuff my parents were listening to. My mom was a huge Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige fan. My dad had a cover band that I sang with, and he loved Parliament, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, the blues, James Brown.
