Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
But my mom was a pianist, and she taught piano out of her house. I was just so excited, being a little kid and having all these other kids come to my house twice a week. I thought it was a big party.
It is not that I don't like contemporary country music because I do. I love it. I have recorded a lot and have had great success recording records that have not been very traditional country records.
In my final year of law school, everything became real. Malaysian TV shows wanted me to perform big concerts. So, after graduating, I decided to go for it. I didn't think I'd be a good lawyer anyway.
I never really listen to what people say. My thing is that my favorite artists are artists that are theatrical. Obviously when you are doing a recording, things aren't gonna translate as over-the-top.
I hope that there is a very confused 14 year old girl out there who hears me speak or hears me sing and derives some sort of strength from that I heard that when I was 14 that's exactly what happened.
I get along great with my family. My parents are really proud of me and my brother, who's a chef here in New York. I don't see my parents often, but they're very supportive, especially as I get older.
But to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin Cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down And I believe it's an easy price for the life that we have found
For each person, they live their life and their truth and how it works for them, and that's just kind of how it works for me. I'm not good at doing whatever the other way is - it wouldn't work for me.
For me, from the point of view of my life, I've been impacted by women that taught me that, as a woman, my body is a sanctuary, that whoever I invite in my body, I have to be clear in that invitation.
I was always on the go, and thought I was too busy to develop something like this. I thought at the time that diabetes went along with bad habits, but I was the last one in my family to eat junk food.
When all you can think of is your own personal problems, you have nothing to give to your society. If you're trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from, you can't go march on Washington.
Every single time I step into the studio, I say, 'Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?' I suppose there's a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.
I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience.
I had the opportunity to be around my kids a lot. I guess I could have kept working, but I had them when I was 47. You only get to see all this stuff once. I just chose to work at home and watch them.
Be original. That's my best advice. You're going to find that there's something that you do well, and try to do it with as much originality as you can, and don't skimp on the words. Work on the words.
When you get to say something in a song you're not directing it necessarily at one person. When it's in a song it's easier to get it out. I don't really worry so much about it when I'm writing a song.
J.S. Bach was easily the greatest musical innovator in the history of the world. He was so advanced for his time. There's a spiritual depth to his music. You can listen to it and it's like meditation.
'Nothin' on You' by B.o.B was the first song where I heard myself on the radio. I'd been trying my whole career to write a song like that, which incorporates live instruments with hip-hop and singing.
I'm so happy to be a song-writer - I'm even surprised when I get to record anything. I consider it a considerable privilege and a blessing to have a medium of expression that has a place in the world.
I think cool moments like winning a Grammy deserve a nice little party where you really soak it in and not have to work and stuff. I do remember throwing a party on that Grammy night, but it was work.
It's so funny because when you're working with an acquaintance or someone else, you're being more polite. I find that I'm a little bit more of a brat when I'm in the studio with my dad, so I feel bad.
I don't really listen to rock music anymore. But were I to write a song that sounded like it could be a rock song, I'd probably give it to the Pornographers, and I'd be excited to try to make it work.
Sometimes when we touch..The honesty's too much, and I have to close my eyes and hide. I want to hold you till I die, 'til we both break down and cry, I want to hold you till this fear in me subsides.
It was a song I wrote for my wife as a present, never intending for it to be a Styx song. 'Babe' was a demo. The demo became the hit record, including all the background vocals, which were done by me.
I'm like a cartoon! I'll look this way when I'm eighty. I can see it now, people will be rolling me around in a wheelchair and I'll still have my big hair, nails, my high heels and my boobs stuck out!
Now I usually try not to give advice. Information, yes, advice, no. But, what has worked for me may not work for you. Well, take for instance what has worked for me. Wigs. Tight clothes. Push up bras.
I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.
There's a lot of women now with a whole lot of style but they are not necessarily song stylists. Some of their style is a lot like me and a lot of people sound a lot alike - you can't tell them apart.
I like to think about stringing songs together like a string of pearls, or a string of beads, but ultimately it has to be stuff that really works with the band, and gives a spin to the older material.
I've never really presumed to know what my fans want or like. When I'm making the music, I just chase whatever I find interesting that day and luckily there are people who find it interesting as well.
That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me that I didn't even know was there until I let it out.
I love my music, so I want to produce, write, and serve my music. I've had to learn about EQ frequencies and programming and space and clutter and how to be a better piano or bass player - everything.
I understand that music is a business, but for people who have control of their stuff, like little Taylor and other artists, I think you'll find them standing up for their music every chance they get.
Sometimes I listen to the radio and I can't believe some of the stuff that I'm hearing that everyone is loving. So it's a task that we've got to conquer and we have to make sure that we pass the test.
I left Cuba when I was two years old. They took away my country, they stole the most intimate thing a human being can have. How could I forget that Fidel Castro was the person who did me so much harm?
Everything that has happened to me in a good way, I never thought in a million years those things would happen. Now that I have achieved those things, there's kind of always another mountain to climb.
I'm not so sure that people consider homelessness to be as important as, say, the Vietnam War. One should never even try to equate them because, of course, they're tragedies on both sides of the coin.
That's when we was makin this video stuff. They went all over the place makin it. And they was wantin to know, at the college, how I got started playin and how do I do everything - you know, all that.
I was never really cut out to be a student, I prefer to actually work and get a project done and learn that way- but I have a huge respect for good teachers and even enjoy teaching...I am a conundrum!
It's been important to me to be a good activist, a good thinker, a good musician, a good singer, and a good entertainer. You can't do it all, but I have walked those delicate lines as best I know how.
Over the years, I was doing what I loved to do, which is my music. But it was always a bit distorted, because I was doing the music in the way other people around me were telling me it should be done.
I dislike the word 'emerging artist.' Emerging connotes to me an alligator coming up from the water. I consider all artists to be artists, not rising, emerging, amateur, beginning, but the real thing.
The wonderful news is that when a person with my lack of art background can be successful, then anyone can. I'm not super talented and had no art training. Nothing, nada, zip. No workshops or classes.
No, I got my web site going and said I have the record out. People were just falling on the floor - they couldn't believe it - after all that time. You know, it wasn't a compilation, it was new songs.
Quite simply I've distilled my mission down to the essence. The only thing I'm really here to do is shine light on people's lives through music, through laughter and to simply enjoy being with people.
And if you're singing to someone, or if they're singing along, and suddenly you're in harmony, then it's actually making a huge difference on a subatomic level that is actually transforming the world.
I was born and raised in Southall; we had two houses which we made into one big one because there were 12 of us living there: me and my bro, my parents, my grandparents, and my dad's brother's family.
My personal aesthetic is to be affected directly by everything about what you're seeing... I don't mind being dashed on the rocks... My most base act of defiance is to live a long time and still rock.
My parents were both very musically inclined, they were both songwriters and musicians, so we grew up in the house singing music together, and R&B had a huge strong arm in the foundation of my career.
I don't wanna say I have a temper... but I do! I kind of sulk and sit there when I'm bitter. I won't show you, but you can see it. Probably if you bring me Godiva chocolate, I'll be your friend again!