A Quote by Ma Rainey
[Advice to Bessie Smith:] Let your soul do the singin'.
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I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.
I love early blues like Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf. I listened to the way these people sang, and it was just beautiful - straight from the soul. That, for me, was an inspiration.
My mind is stuffed with quotes. Lines, couplets, paragraphs, stanzas; Bessie Smith, Stevie Smith, Tin Pan Alley, rock and roll. They tease or lead or hurl me into a dream space of jostling languages that I need to bask in each day in order to write.
I met musician Ken Farmer in Lorne and he lent me all of his Bessie Smith blues LPs. That's when I started to sing.
Bessie Braddock: "Winston, you're drunk. Churchill: "Bessie, you're ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober.
It would be great to have Bach in one corner, Bessie Smith in another, John Lennon in another. That's what I'd ideally like. A studio of the dead.
Jazz infers a style, but creative music has a wider field and wider specification about it. We know it from people like Scott Joplin and on through Bessie Smith.
I think I was probably an early teenager when I discovered Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and a bunch of people that are on a long list of artists. They were important to me, especially as an early adolescent.
My role models came in my imagination, from what I'd heard on the radio or on record... Vera Lynn I loved, but I'd only ever heard her on the radio. Gospel singers, Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson. So it was in my head that I visualised the emotion but no way to see how people do it.
I do - very specifically, I remember Bessie Smith; I used to collect 78 records that I would buy from the St Vincent de Paul store at five cents apiece, and I did this indiscriminately. I would just take whatever was there. And I listened to Patti Page and Walter Huston, 'September Song.'
The first big stars, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, you know, these were gigantic stars. I even wonder sometimes whether all music actually comes from women, whether the first glimmering of music is a mother soothing a baby.
I started composing when I was around 13, and back then, people used to say that I needed to be a composer or a performer, but I can't be good at both of them. I could never understand why anyone would say that. Jellyroll did both, Bessie Smith did both, and so did I.
Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage.
Your soul has a special mission. Your soul is supremely conscious of it.
Maya, illusion or forgetfulness, makes you feel that you are finite, weak and helpless. This is not true. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. These are all limited. You are the soul, which is unlimited. Your soul is infinitely powerful. Your soul defies all time and space.
I was never given this advice, people aren't given this advice, focus on growing and maintaining relationships for your network, and that's key. And most of the advice tends to be, you know, discover your strengths, build up your resume, get a title, all of that stuff pales in comparison.
From then on in, me and Sonny started makin' records. My first records, Sonny was backin' me up. Sonny wasn't singin' natural at the time; he was singin' falsetto.
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