A Quote by Imelda May

Everybody told me that if I insisted on doing rockabilly music, I'd never have a chance of selling any records. In fact, I lost count of how many people told me to ditch it all together, in favour, I guess, of sounding like everybody else.
I was told I was going undrafted. That's what I was told by everybody. I guess I wasn't good enough in everybody else's eyes.
People have always told tales. Long before humanity learned to write and gradually became literate, everybody told tales to everybody else and everybody listened to everybody else's tales. Before long it became clear that some of the still illiterate storytellers told more and better tales than others, that is, they could make more people believe their lies.
If you listen to everybody's opinions, I mean, I always say I'd be digging a ditch on the side of the road now if I had listened to what everybody told me what to do. You know, you have to follow your heart, you have to.
Everybody recommended me to Sinatra and Don Costa, because everybody was enjoying my music. I got a big following going on. Nino (Tempo) told Don Costa "you gotta come see this guy." And that's how Don Costa heard about me, through Nino Tempo. Then, Don Costa brought me to the attention of Frank Sinatra and Reprise Records.
I've only had a sit-down encounter with Robert once, and that one conversation was the best advice that I have gotten from any individual in the music industry. R Kelly told me that as long as I write life and not music I will always have a job. He listened to several of my records and told me that they were great records and for that to come from a man who has produced hit after hit gave me a comfort and reassurance that making honest and good music was not in vain.
Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.
Obviously, with me being a DJ, I have a love for music. One day I was like, 'OK. I'm tired of playing everybody else's music. I rather play my music.' So, that's kind of how the whole me doing music thing started.
Honestly, a lot of people thought that I was on top of the world selling so many millions of records, and that this is the life that everybody would want, but I never got to enjoy any of my success.
I was lucky to be in a household where whatever I wanted to do was supported and my music was always such a natural part of me, and I was never told that I couldn't do it. So I've always been able to follow my heart and my instincts and what I love, that being my art. And I know that not everybody really has that chance or that environment, the same one that I did, so I kind of want to help in any way that I can.
Everybody told me to be a man. Nobody told me how.
No one's going to tell me how to make my own choices. For too many years, everybody told me what to say and what to do and how to be.
When it's my show, I know that everybody is there to see me - but I like a challenge, and I like the fact that at festivals not everybody is there to see me, but I have the chance to convert people.
When it's my show, I know that everybody is there to see me - but I like a challenge, and I like the fact that at festivals, not everybody is there to see me, but I have the chance to convert people.
Well, I don't let anyone record with me that is not a fan of mine or believe in my music. Everybody that records for me, from Bob Dylan on down to George Jones, everybody loves me and my music, and I knew they would do their best that they could do, and they did. I didn't doubt them a bit. There's some country people that I wouldn't want, which didn't record with me.
I was always okay with the fact that I was taller and bigger than everybody else growing up. My mom, my dad, and my friends always told me I was beautiful.
I've never tried to be accepted. When everyone is doing one thing, I've always had the instinct to go the other way. I don't understand how an individual with their own mind, their own values, and their own beliefs can be so willing to just follow what everybody else is doing. How can you make history doing what everybody else is doing?
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