A Quote by Steve Miller
My roots are in everything from doo-wop and blues to the Four Freshman and the Beach Boys and jazz and electronica. But it was put together in a deceptively simple package.
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I was singing doo-wop on the corner under the streetlight with four other guys when it wasn't called doo-wop. We just got together and sang, so that music is inside of me. It's a lot of stuff that has been rolling around in here and becoming this compost and has made me who I am as a singer.
I'm a fan of all these genres of music, everything from Mumford & Sons to Beach Boys to doo-wop music to reggae.
The first time I recorded without Allen Toussaint, I wanted to do doo-wop. Everything I've done since then has got some kind of doo-wop essence in it.
Whichever chord progressions move me, whether it's rock, jazz, doo-wop or soul, I'm going to put it together and not be worried about whether people can put it in a lane or not.
I always liked jazz. And my people liked the old blues, race records and the doo-wop and all that.
'Doo-wop' is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.
I've been into every doo-wop there is. I think I went to the university of doo-wop-ology.
Doo-wop was full of blues for me.
I did have my beginnings in doo-wop music; I had a group called the Tokens in Brooklyn. They went on, of course, to do 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and a lot of other great things. I went on as a soloist. But I still love doo-wop music.
'Soulfire' is a collection of stuff I've done in the past. Each song is an element of who I am: There's a doo-wop song on the album; a blues song, R&B and some jazz. For people who are going to be hearing me for the first time, it's an introduction to who I am.
I've always loved soul, R&B, doo-wop and blues, and I've wanted to make a record like that for years.
Doo-wop is the true music to me, man. Doo-wop was what nurtured me and grew me into who I am, and I guess even when I was in school, the teacher probably thought I had ADD or something every day, because I'd be beating on the desks, singing like the Flamingos or the Spaniels or Clyde McPhatter or somebody.
I've done all different kinds of genres - doo-wop, pop, funk, gospel, country, jazz, you name it.
The blues is deceptively simple. Verse and chorus. Sometimes not even a chorus. Four bars that repeat, no Auto-Tune, electricity optional. It is the most direct, bare-bones of content. There is no interference between the head and heart.
I used to listen to so much doo-wop, and I've talked a lot about gospel music, but I realised a lot of that language came from doo-wop music. You know, "I Asked the Lord Above," "Heaven Sent Me an Angel." That's rock-'n-roll, and that's where a lot of this language is coming from. Also, I've said before that as soon as you start having a conversation with Jesus in a song you know you're dealing with issues of morality and how fragile it is to be human. It's a shortcut to putting those ideas across.
I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer...I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues – just a right-out blues – but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music.
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