A Quote by Taj Mahal

I don't need the credits for playing the blues and paying the dues. I've already done it. There are some other things to do here - movies and scores and voice-overs. — © Taj Mahal
I don't need the credits for playing the blues and paying the dues. I've already done it. There are some other things to do here - movies and scores and voice-overs.
See, I have a different type of music from other peoples. They playing the other kind of blues, and I'm playing cotton-patch blues.... Ain't nobody now can play the blues that I play.
If anything, I would say the movies I've done have been very low paid. TV work and voice-overs have been more lucrative.
To be honest, there is a special gift for doing voice-overs, and the people who did the voices in the 'SpongeBob' cast are excellent at cartoon voice-overs, and they bring something extra to the reads.
Some of the top grossing movies now are children's animated features, they're making more money than action movies. And you'd never find a Hollywood A-lister years ago doing voice-overs for those films and they do now. You know why? Because everybody's got a price.
In my career, I have done more than a thousand voice-overs in commercials, cartoons, and radio shows, so I'm very familiar of my voice capabilities and its range.
I loved the opportunity to just transform my voice. I loved the idea of doing impressions and mimicking and playing around with the spectrum of your own voice. That's what I enjoy most about doing voice-overs.
Most filmmakers' entire body of knowledge is of other movies. When they describe things, they describe them in relation to other movies. That's why we have so many cyclical movies that look like other movies. But I'm not cynical. I even go to some of those movies.
I was actually fortunate that I never had to have any other job than being an actor. I don't have those odd stories of having to make some money here or there, but certainly there are some credits on my résumé I wish I hadn't done. It paid my health insurance, and I say that just from a creative standpoint, shows I'm not that proud of, things like that.
Between 50 overs and 20 overs, there is a big difference, because there is 30 extra overs of fielding and six extra overs to bowl, and that can take its toll.
Charlie Patton, who was born in 1891, recorded some of the very first blues. In 'Pony Blues' and 'Peavine Blues,' he manages to pile dense layers of rhythms one upon the other.
I think that the blues is in everything, so it's not possible to neglect it. You hear somebody go 'Ooh ooh oooh,' and that's the blues. You hear a rock n' roll song. That's the blues. Somebody playing a guitar solo? They're playing the blues.
I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration... "Joy and Pain" - sit side by side. The blues started off in some field, in some plantation, in some mind, in some imagination, in some heart. The blues blew over to the next plantation, and then the next state. The blues went south to north, got electrified and even sanctified. The blues got mixed up with jazz and gospel and rock and roll.
All of the sudden people say, "She's got tits and legs and blond hair. Let's talk to her!" I've been paying dues for years in modeling. Not only that, it took a month and a half of Chuck Russell, The Mask's director, and Jim Carrey trying to get New Line to say O.K. on me. I didn't sleep; I had an ulcer. Of course, when people talk of paying their dues, they mean years of going to acting school and auditionin.
In every sport you have to have a Plan B. For me, Plan B is already set. It's to do everything from voice-overs for cartoons to action and adventure movies, not only in the United States but here in Japan.
My interest in music tends toward being orchestral music. And the repertoire of music that exists is, to me, far more emotive than what is standardly used in movie scores. That isn't always. I think there've been some excellent movie scores by excellent directors. But for the most part, watching a film, one of today's movies, I think that the emotional undertone of movie scores is pretty poor.
There was a time we decided that it was songs that were done especially from my background because of the things we were dealing with, but nowadays, anybody who has a need, and can find the need, they can sing the blues.
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