A Quote by MC Lyte
I grew up listening and looking up at these people and laughing at Carol Burnett and singing James Taylor songs. And same with Smokey Robinson. So they were such a huge influence as a child that to actually sit alongside them and perform on the same bill was an amazing experience for me.
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Taylor was named after James Taylor and claims that she knows all the James Taylor songs, and I'm a huge fan of James Taylor and know all his songs, too. My dad told me that if I ever met Taylor Swift, I had to tell her that I know every James Taylor song. We started naming albums, and we were both shouting them out.
I grew up listening to T-Pain and The-Dream, and they were doing that thing, rapping and singing at the same time. That's where I get it from.
My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles - I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.
Since I was growing up, I liked love songs - Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke. That was the kind of songs getting the girls dancing.
I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was 15. I think what mainly sparked my interest was just the fact that I grew up listening to Cheryl King, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, and was just always inspired by that sort of organic art, and organic songs and just very natural songwriting that came out of some of those artists.
The Beatles were huge. And the first thing they said when you interviewed them, 'Oh yeah, we grew up on Motown.'..They were the first white act to admit they grew up listening to black music.
Barry White, Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield are big influences for me. But I'm also a metal head. I was in a bunch of punk rock bands. The Bee Gees, hip-hop and the Beach Boys are just as much of an influence on me as Smokey.
I was a very lucky kid, because I grew up affluent Santa Barbara, California. My experience as a child was probably so different from people I met later who grew up in the rural South, where many doors were closed to them.
I grew up in a time where on things like 'The Red Skeleton Show' or even to a certain extent on 'The Carol Burnett Show,' people wrote in the breakouts or ad-libs. They were scripted to look spontaneous. So I always had a dislike of that kind of thing.
I grew up abroad, so I would love to have my child grow up the same way and experience the world.
I heard Smokey Robinson was singing one of my songs on the radio the other day. Being in the presence of Mavis Staples, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott - Stevie Wonder joined me on stage recently. That blows me away.
The only recording studio was in Motown - it was called Tamla/Motown at that time and we used to audition there because Smokey Robinson was at that studio and Berry Gordy was the president. I remember asking Smokey to listen to my group and he did. For the first couple of years we were just singing background. We used to back up Marvin Gaye; Mary Wells was there then, Marv Johnson, the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Junior Walker and the All-Stars.
I grew up in the age of variety shows. 'Flip Wilson,' 'Carol Burnett,' 'Donny and Marie,' and 'Sonny and Cher' - I never missed an episode. These shows had it all: singing, dancing, and sketch comedy. One minute, they're ice-skating with pyrotechnics, the next they're doing a scene on a gigantic set. I just couldn't get enough.
I grew up listening to the Police, I grew up performing in bars, singing Police songs.
So I usually call the songs when I get on the stage, according to what the crowd feels like to me. I can jump from 50 years ago to right up to now, and people will be familiar with the songs. And since we never do them the same way, it's a new experience.
My favorite time in music is probably 1970-75. Still Bill by Bill Withers, Harvest by Neil Young, John Prine's first album, James Taylor's One Man Dog-I hope I can bring the same sort of spirit I hear on those records.
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