A Quote by Frances Ruffelle

A lot of the music is the kind of thing I grew up with, listening to it with my parents. So there was a band in London called the BBC Big Band, and I sang with them. And I had never done a big band before, and it was just so fantastic and I had such a good time...so that's how it all came about
I had always wanted to make music on a big scale but never knew how it was going happen - until I saw a band in Oslo called Bridges. I was stunned. They had everything. The only thing they didn't have was me. I knew I needed to join, not for my own sake but for the band's. I knew I was a necessary ingredient.
I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.
We became a band that was kind of a big band, kind of a band that quite uncool people listen to, people a lot like me. I've realized that's a much more beautiful fate than the plan I had.
I grew up not really listening to guitar players. Especially when I was studying music, I was just interested in piano players and arrangers and composers; I came to playing in a band from the perspective of someone who never expected to play guitar in a band.
For starters, I should just tell you that The Band was always my favorite band from the first moment that I heard the first note of "The Weight" on WNEW radio. It was when I was eight years old and Music From Big Pink came out. They were my favorite band always. They had a profound influence on me and on my becoming a musician.
You don't accidentally turn into a big band. Not even Nirvana accidentally turned into a big band. They toured - they wanted to become a big band. They didn't necessarily want to become that big of a band, but they still wanted to make a really good record and wanted to come out and tour.
I was in bands as a singer-guitarist-songwriter until 1980-81. So, there's a bunch of stuff. A lot of the stuff is hard to come by-stuff by the Special Interest Group and the Zobo Funn Band. The Zobo Funn Band was a big Northeast cult band. We had about a billion skirmishes with the big rock industry.
I had a ten-piece band when I was 21 years old, the Bruce Springsteen Band. This is just a slightly expanded version of a band I had before I ever signed a record contract. We had singers and horns.
My dad was all about music. He was a musician, leading a band when I was born. His band was active all through the 40s. He'd started it in the late 20s and 30s. According to the scrapbook, his band was doing quite well around the Boston area. During the Depression they were on radio. It was a jazz-oriented band. He was a trumpet player, and he wrote and arranged for the band. He taught me how to play the piano and read music, and taught me what he knew of standard tunes and so forth. It was a fantastic way to come up in music.
Our band Stereophonics never wanted to release a couple records and be the biggest band in the world for 10 minutes. We always wanted to stand the test of time, and make great music that people would want to listen to and that music lasts. We'd looked up to artists and bands that had big back catalogues.
The first band I was in out of college was a Celtic band, and I had to learn to sing with a microphone, because I'd never done that before. At Oberlin, I never used a mic for any kind of singing.
I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.
I grew up mostly with classical, big band, and a lot of Irish music - I really didn't start listening to rock and roll until I was maybe sixteen.
There's very notable dynamics in all of the collaborations I've done. It's hard to say if one is more important than the other, but if I had to think of all situations and point to one band that I enjoyed most it would be when I was eight years old. I had a band with my little sister and the kid across the street. We sat around all day playing music and it was bliss. I didn't have any expectations or do it for anyone or worry about selling an album. That was really my favorite band. We were called Hot Chocolate.
I grew up in a school that had a big music program, and it was incredible. It's what I looked forward to during the day. I had chorus, strings, band.
I grew up singing in Kansas. My dad had a band when I was growing up. So I sang in church and school and started singing with his band when I was seven. So I've been singing all my life.
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