Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Music, to me, is something that connects to the soul.
To me, the Ennio Morricone kind of sound is a derivative of soul music.
I think listening to real classic soul material made me learn how to feel music that's sung.
For me, music is for the soul - no matter whether the song is composed by me or by someone else.
Music is a part of someone's soul. Music is a feeling for me. And if that soul is evil, then I don't want anything to do with it.
Guys like me and Ray Charles, when we was coming up through our days, country music and soul music was just a very thin line between the two.
Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.
I think it's all about the music you listen to along the way. For me, my parents always played Motown music and The Beatles, so I was drawn to the soul.
Jazz scares me. I've witnessed so many incredible singers and jazz musicians. Pop and soul music have always been the things that I felt like I could do.
Mary J. Blige has made the most improvement, to me, and the depth of the spirit and the soul in her music, the way she sings, gives her that 'it' factor.
These seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.
I was meant to make music in my soul way younger than I did. I was just scared because I knew it would take more of me than anything else. But I was all into facing my fears.
I like listening to old soul music. I like Sam Cooke. When I was growing up, the first things I was listening to was Whitney Houston and Cher. They were really big inspirations for me.
I grew up with KTSU, and that station gave me so much info about the pantheon of black sounds: reggae, gospel, blues, soul, hip hop, and mostly they played jazz. That was a major part of how I understood music.
Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.
I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about Black music, about soul music.
The only thing I wanted to accomplish was to finally get recognized by the music industry. If you know the awards, answer me this question: Do you see an award for soul music? No. They have R&B, funk, hip-hop and all sorts of contemporary things.
I'm totally up for experimental music. I'm up for music that they don't play on the radio, and I take in all of it. But my thing, the thing that comes most natural to me, is making the stuff that has a melody; it has a soul to it, yet it's head music.
It's hard to come across a true country fan in L.A., but it's true that the fans are so loyal, once you're in their circle, you're in for your entire career. It just really speaks to me. Country music has so much soul and is so heartfelt. I think it's a perfect fit for me.
I say that I do soul, R&B music. I have so many influences, from Billie Holiday, Nina Simone to Stevie Wonder and Prince and even Al Green and Bjork. And a lot of hip hop music has influenced me a lot - you know - De La Soul and Digital Underground and A Tribe Called Quest.
I've bought clothes based on record covers. Particularly from the formative music that turned me onto it in the first place when I was a kid, with the Beatles and the Small Faces. A lot of those Sixties soul artists were in really sharp sharkskin or mohair suits, and Motown artists looked amazing.
To me, skin is alien and kind of weird; it weirds me out. It's strange, but it's also really intimate and personal; it's living, organic. That's how I want the music to sound; I want it to feel alien and strange, but also like it's got a heartbeat, like it's got a soul, like it's not made by a robot.
The thing with me is, about that - about rock and all that - years and years of crate-digging, listening to old music, you kind of start to connect the dots. And I was seeing the thread that was connecting everything together, which is pretty much the blues. And everything soul or funk kind of starts with that.
It's really important for me that the people who listen to my music get something that can hopefully help them get through whatever they're going through. Music is the only thing that's able to help sooth my soul in that way, and my goal is to always put things out there that that do the same thing for other people.