A Quote by Stephanie Mills
I have mad love for the way we were taught and trained back in the day. I mean, those of us - like Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight - we didn't give into this new wave of celebrity.
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I like Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle. I would love to do songs with them.
I would love for people to look at me as a great singer but also know exactly who I am, the way that we have loved and respected people like Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle, having gone through the different stages of their lives with them. That's the type of history I want to have.
When I was 5, 'American Bandstand' had a lot of good artists on there, man. That's when I really started falling in love with the jams: Gladys Knight & the Pips, Patti LaBelle, Bootsy Collins, Parliament.
I can't tell you how many reshoots I've done from, you know, famous photographers who really love just to shoot models and failed at shooting a Patti Labelle or someone like that because Patti Labelle didn't turn them on, so you have to shoot what you care about.
Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.
The main thing I like to do is have a mix of the '70s glamour and emulate a lot of ladies I love, like, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, Donna Summers. I remember thinking that as a young girl, they were so cool and iconic. I missed that!
I mean, you could have said Elvis Presley was new wave when it happened. I heard Willy DeVille and Tom Petty and to me they were new wave really because they were new.
You know later in life I was inspired to sing and that would've been Aretha, Chaka Khan, Mariah - the typical divas were the inspiration. I've always enjoyed all those singers.
I love Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, and The Supremes, because I'm kind of old-school at heart.
Then when Gladys Knight came in to do my songs that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Of all the soul divas, Gladys Knight was the one for me. Knight's always been about tone and heart, none of the big showboating or extraneous doodling. She nailed a melody and only played a little around the edges like Ma Staple.
There weren't any white people in this country who didn't know who Gladys Knight was. Or the Pips were, as far as that's concerned.
But celebrity really doesn't mean anything unless you use it for finding some way to give back and I've always felt that way.
Singers like Gladys Knight are mostly responsible for how I learned to sing.
A couple of months ago I hauled my white ass on stage alongside Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder for Divas Las Vegas, singing in front of a celebrity audience. If I can hold my own there, I can hold my own at Top of the Pops, trust me.
My mom actually had a band called Six Pack - even though there were seven of them - who went around Chicago performing popular songs. Her voice was like Gladys Knight mixed with Aretha Franklin.
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