A Quote by Duffy
When my family all got together, I'd always get up and entertain everyone, but it was all a bit of a joke. My first real memory of singing for people was when I was about eleven or 12.
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I'm a true country Southern girl that has always been built around family, cookouts and gatherings and being together on the holidays, singing together and laughing together. So whenever God opened doors for me to be able to travel the world and sing and do all the great things that I've done, I didn't want to lose that part so family first for me.
I don't know what's my first real memory. When you're little, you're always looking forward to days that are special, like Christmas, birthdays, the Fourth of July, and family gatherings. But I can't pinpoint my earliest memory.
I think a lot of my songs are very silly and very stupid, written to entertain people, but in the end, I always come to that last line, and I feel that I have to wrap this up with a bit of dignity and a little tear in the eye; otherwise, the joke would be on the characters in the song.
What I always look for is someone that really knew how to lean up against a bar, get a drink, sit on a barstool. When people are in bars they're relaxed. No real right angles - it's slow moves, it's slow conversations. You can tell a loud joke, but everyone's very relaxed. I never would pick somebody nervous or twitchy. If I found guys with beards, I'd ask them, don't trim the edges, don't go in and manicure yourself up. I always look for people that look like they're comfortable in their own skin, that wouldn't feel like it was the first time they were ever in a bar.
The media circus got a bit twisted when I was in London. It became a bit of a joke, really. In Paris, they're so serious, I can take myself really seriously, too. I can get really morbid without people telling me to cheer up.
I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.
My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid.
I came from a very musical family, so I grew up singing karaoke with the family. My family said 'do this' and brought me to singing lessons. I had always been writing poems and songs.
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.
I got really lucky that at age 12, I knew I just wanted to be a dancing monkey in front of people and entertain them, or try to. It's amazing that at age 12 I realized what a needy life I was gonna have.
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.
Circus is what real life should be like. It's sincerity, feeling, emotions. All real. There are no lies in circus. There are artists working together to give a smile. It's a world where people help one another. It's the only show where a family, everyone from children to their grandmothers, can sit together and all be entertained by the same thing.
I'm straight and always have been. When our family gets together, we joke about it or throw our hands up in desperation because there is very little we can do. If we make a big fuss about correcting these rumors, it just creates more attention and turns the whole thing into a soap opera.
Country music is about new love and it's about old love. It's about gettin' drunk and gettin' sober. It's about leavin' and it's about comin' home. It's real music sung by real people for real people, the people that make up the backbone of this country. You can call us rednecks if you want. We're not offended, 'cause we know what we're all about. We get up and go to work, we get up and go to church, and we get up and go to war when necessary.
When someone new comes on and has their first nude scene - and even if it's not full nudity - it's always a weird, awkward setup. We have these famous merkins which are sort of toupees for your delicate areas to make it look like you're naked but cover you up a little bit. But we joke around a little bit with the newbies who are trying that stuff on for the first time.
My first experience of that was with my first movie which I did in India. And it was so different from other people. I find that "Oh my God." Every time the music is slow I feel that people are going to get up and go out. You get this nervousness. But, to my surprise, people starting singing the song even before it came in. They started singing along a week later, after release, which was very cool.
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