A Quote by Vera Lynn
I never smoked myself because it lowers your voice and mine was already low. Some singers liked their smoky voices though, like Marlene Dietrich.
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I grew up watching old black and white movies where Marlene Dietrich or Jean Harlow would go walking down some cobblestone street in ripped stockings and head into some smoky boite and sing for a pathetic living. That's so what I wanted to be.
It's taken me to be an older guy, an old man, to have an old man's voice. Because I only liked old men's voices. As a kid, I didn't like pip-squeaked singers.
Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that.
My mother and my sisters - five girls - were crazy about glamour and Hollywood movies. I styled myself on Veronica Lake and Marlene Dietrich.
I separate the performer from the private citizen because it works for me. That gives the surprise element to my show. It doesn't change my playing. But if in a business suit they would think I was crazy. It's like putting Marlene Dietrich in a housedress.
It [my vocal] didn't sound like what I wanted to hear; the vibrato isn't what I liked anymore. So I got myself to an ear, nose and throat guy who does a lot of work with singers, and I was hoping there was a big wart on my vocal cords or something and they could scrape it off and I could have the voice I wanted. But he said, "No, for 71, that's your voice."
I actually prefer female voices to listen to, mostly, but among the male singers whose voices I like are Jeff Buckley, Art Garfunkel, that sort of voice. Contemporary crooners rather than rockers.
As a little girl growing up in a small farming town in Michigan, my idols were women like Marlene Dietrich and Rita Hayworth.
People like Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Marlene Dietrich and Sammy Davis Jr. all walked me down this path of entertainment.
I had dinner with Marlene Dietrich in the early 1970s. I went to pick her up and she had someone with her, a dreadful man. He was writing a book about her, and he said to her, 'You're so cold when you perform,' and she said, 'You didn't listen to the voice.' She said the difficulty was to place the voice with the face.
I grew up on Bette Davis movies, and Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe.
You wake up and you feel - what? Heaviness, an ache inside, a weight, yes. A soft crumpling of the flesh. A feeling like all the surfaces inside you have been rubbed raw. A voice in your head - no, not voices, not like hearing voices, nothing that crazy, just your own inner voice, the one that says 'Turn left at the corner' or 'Don't forget to stop at the post office,' only now it's saying, 'I hate myself.' It's saying, 'I want to die.'
I am recognizing that the voice inside my head
Is urging me to be myself, but never follow someone else
Because opinions are like voices, we all have a different kind.
Even the most beautiful legs - Marlene Dietrich's, for instance - look better when the kneecap is covered.
I'm always thinking about songs and how I can sing a song that would resonate with my voice, my persona. I want it to be a pleasant experience that's not just about hearing my voice. I remember some singers whose voices were so pretty, it didn't matter what they sang - you loved it.
Sometimes I need silence; sometimes I need voices around - but not too loud or distinctive. I guess it depends on the piece in question, what stage I'm in. I think some voices can help me not to try too hard - especially at the beginning stages. Does that make sense? By some voice I mean, low chatter in the room. When there's low chatter in the room, I'm a little more relaxed, my mind might be a little more open.
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