My first competition, I guess, singing-wise, I was six years old, and there's a video of it, too. I'm just, like, stick straight. I'm not moving at all, and I'm just singing.
I started singing about three years ago, I entered a local singing competition called Stratford Idol. The other people in the competition had been taking singing lessons and had vocal coaches. I wasn't taking it too seriously at the time, I would just sing around the house. I was only 12 and I got second place.
I remember growing up singing; even when I was just three years old, I was singing all the time in the house. My parents said I was singing before I could even talk properly.
All my songs were solo voices. Just me singing. In fact, that was the gimmick - no gimmick. Just singing straight with not too much background.
I started singing very early. I was six or seven years old, and I was singing along to TV commercials and figuring out, 'Oh, hey, I can sing in tune. This is really cool.' But the songwriting thing came much much later, when I was 19 years old.
I started off singing when I was little. My parents have said I was singing at 3 years old. So I think it was just something I probably came into this world wanting to do and knowing I was going to do.
The whole first two-thirds of the I Just Can't Stop Loving You song is just he and I. He's singing lead and I'm doing all the harmonies and we're both singing all the background. We're singing all the choruses until the choir comes in. We were the first two-thirds of the song.
You start singing by singing what you hear. So everyone, when they first start singing, they naturally are singing like whatever they're hearing, because that's the only way you learned how to sing. So when I was growing up on Lauryn Hill, when I started singing her songs, I literally trained my voice to be able to do runs.
My first love was singing. It was the first thing that really felt like it was a part of me. It's just in my blood. And acting came sort of out of singing because I did a lot of musical theater.
When I first started singing in Paris, I sounded horrible: I was just singing to get some money to eat. And I wasn't singing my own songs: it was Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix. Eventually, when I wrote my own music, my style just came out of my own place.
There's just a total boatload of crazy that goes with singing live for the first time when you're 60 years old.
If you watch home videos, at 4 years old, I was doing nothing but being the entertainer. Singing 'Boot Scootin' Boogie' in the living room. Then, I guess, just by the grace of God I started writing songs, and somebody happened to like them.
There's a few kids out there who like singing to my songs. They're, like, five, six, seven years old.
What's funny is my mom took me to the theater for the first time when I was six years old, and I was just amazed by it. I just said, 'Hey Mom, can I do this too?' And so she signed me up for little theater classes, and I remember my first audition for a play when I was seven years old was for 'The Thankful Elf.'
I had been singing since I was 3 years old, so my love of singing was always there.
A band has a certain responsibility to work songs for years and stick to rules more. A solo artist can just do whatever they want, and also present themselves as somebody who's just singing about their life.
I grew up singing in church. I've been doing that since I was 3 years old. Singing was a blessing for me to do.