I don’t know what singers feel like when they make a song and people clap along and love it, but when people walk up to me and say the food was outstanding, that’s what it is all about. I cook because I like to make people happy.
I grew up in eastern Kentucky, and we would sing in the churches, and there’s lots of good mountain church singers out there. Like a lot of folks who turn out to be secular music artists, that’s a lot of the training you put in, whether you know it or not.
It takes a lot to put a 5-piece band on, even though we need it. We need those harmonies; I need those four background singers – not because I can’t sing but because I need to relay the message of what the song is emotionally, or the feeling, period.
I don’t think I am even the best I can be. I like to listen to other singers and learn from them, but I’m always working on myself, trying to improve, trying to be very tough with myself.
For a producer, you want to be in L.A. You want to be close to the action, and in L.A. there are always singers, artists, songwriters, collaborators and other producers. It’s easy to get access to all that, which gives you more opportunity to work records.
I actually prefer female voices to listen to, mostly, but among the male singers whose voices I like are Jeff Buckley, Art Garfunkel, that sort of voice. Contemporary crooners rather than rockers.
I’m just glad that I’m the musical equivalent of a character actress, because blues singers can keep singing and having an audience at 35, and someone like Madonna’s gonna have to find something else to do, ‘cos I don’t care how pointy those bras are that she wears, they’re still gonna look a little odd when she’s 55!
I hadn’t been a recording artist all that long when albums came on the scene, and I was one of the first singers to point the way to how varied an album’s contents could be.
There is one thing I should say, and it’s important: Young Broadway singers and anybody who is an orator of any kind – lawyers who have to speak in court or pastors or anyone who has a lot of stress on their vocal cords: You should do the maintenance. You should do whatever it takes to feel fresh and good.
I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers – there were only white singers. They weren’t even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don’t know who gave us the name ‘background singers,’ but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background.
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.
I think if you look back at the lead singers that left groups that didn’t make it, you’ll see that a lot of them were songwriters like Lionel Richie. I mean, they were able to control their own destiny.
I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.
Since I started composing I have always worked with series of tempos, even superimposed the music of different groups of musicians, of singers, instrumentalists who play and sing in different tempos simultaneously and then meet every now and then in the same tempo.
Singers put emotions into songs which the actors later replicate on screen. When I know that I can also present myself well on-screen, why not do that?
I’ve been lucky, because people have done such great versions of my songs, and I’ve worked with the best singers ever, and I’m lucky that way.
I didn’t even respect singers until I heard Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.
There are two types of conductors. One is the good conductor who can do passionate music but also listen to the singers and do the orchestra. And then there are great conductors, who have their own opinion on the music, who are ruling everything – and not listening much to the singers, but the orchestra play amazingly.
You get better as an actor over time if you’re growing. Like singers.
Lead singers, they’re their own breed.
My credentials, briefly: I no longer go to church or believe in God, but I can still name every one of the fruits of the Spirit and reeled for days upon hearing the announcement that Audio Adrenaline was reunited with one of the singers from DC Talk.
I feel like a lot of pop singers hurt themselves if they don’t have the proper training.
Singers have a lot in common with actors because you have to dig deep into a song and show the audience what you are feeling as you sing.
My grandad’s a gospel singer, and his children were singers, too. But I don’t believe in God in the same way… not religion; it breaks us up too much. The same with musical styles – it breaks people up. I believe they are all one thing – why not put them together?
Now, it’s not that Super Junior and I are singers or actors for the fans. We’re family.
In my vocal, I think you can hear something of my earlier times when I’d sing in subway halls for the echo and perform doo-wop on street corners. But I had a lot of influences, too – singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton.
I’ve never associated myself with other singers, certainly not female singers.
The old jazz singers or old blues singers, you always just saw them kind of sitting down and singing. They weren’t worried as much about their voice sounding perfect. They would make the song kind of fit their voice.
In my childhood, I used to go to theatres to watch independent singers’ outing on screen. I used to be excited about how different they sound in a video and at a theatre.
First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers.
It’s very important for singers to feature in their videos because when we do playback for Bollywood, we tend to become the voice of the character – whether it’s the actor or a situation that we are singing for.
Most singers begin with a band and then go solo. I started making music on my own and subsequently chose to carry on as part of a band.
All great singers copy someone else in the initial stages.
It’s always beautiful to sing with other great voices. I like voices in general. It’s a big privilege to have great singers next to me.
Most of the dramatism in Wagner comes from a very close link between the music and the language of the text. So much of the expressivity of Wagner’s music dramas comes from the singers’ capacity to play with the sound of the language. This kind of thing you can do very well in concert performance.
I’m one of the best producers, one of the best singers. You hear me? I’m not just one of the best rappers. I’m one of the greatest ever.
If you look back, you get stuck in a year. I’ve seen rappers and singers get stuck in 2002 or 2005, and they can’t get out.
There are many singers who have got an exceptional talent, but spend their lives singing in local trains or hotels. Does the country even know who they are? Music in India is restricted only to Bollywood. Whoever manages to make a mark there is remembered. The ones who fail to reach and make it big there are forgotten.
I’d say music runs in my blood. My parents are exceptionally talented singers, so even before I was born, it was a known fact to them that I’d become a singer. Thanks to my genes, I started off at the age of three and since then, music has meant everything to me.
Even if change in a voice is light, and people maybe don’t notice it, that slight change is, for singers, a bit of an earthquake.
God uses singers in a mighty way, and I am grateful.
Brian Owens is a young guy from Ferguson, Missouri, my hometown, who I don’t think emulates me at all, but I really enjoy his particular style. He kind of makes me think of the older school of soul singers like Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye.
Nowadays, everyone writes a cookbook. Models, singers, whatever, everybody thinks that they can do it and cook on TV. What they don’t understand is that if you want to do it well, you need to put in the hours.
I’m a big fan of skilled singers. Some of my favorites are Cee-Lo Green, Donny Hathaway, James Fauntleroy, and Kim Burrell.
I’m a musician at heart, I know I’m not really a singer. I couldn’t compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.
My parents were opera singers and voice teachers, so growing up, I admired musicians and dancers.
Women are a key part of the sound of the groups that accompany male singers like Kirk Franklin, Israel Houghton, and myself.
Actors and singers share common ground in that they both express something.
I think I’m inspired mostly by other artists that aren’t actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.
It’s easier to record because technology is advanced. That’s why there is a spurt in the number of new singers.
Barriers have been broken: rappers are singing, and singers are rapping. You might catch a rapper on a rock song, a pop artist on a hip-hop song – there are so many different things that are going on today. That is the same way in which we live our lives; we’re all over the place. I like to try different things.
I like R&B. I listen to music, not singers.
I was brought up in a house with a lot of appreciation for music, all kinds of music, including jazz. But I never knew that it could really be a career. I didn’t know any jazz singers. I never saw live jazz. I only heard these records.
