A Quote by Wilson Pickett

Anytime you've got artists singing songs, doing grooves that they don't want to do, it's terrible. — © Wilson Pickett
Anytime you've got artists singing songs, doing grooves that they don't want to do, it's terrible.
I find artists like Tim Barry, Cory Branan, and Jenny Owen Youngs, these current artists that are doing what they're doing now are my idols, my generation's incredible songwriters. I've listened to so much music on the whole ride and I'm inspired by a lot of classic artists, but it's the people right next to me singing songs that are blowing my mind, if that makes any sense.
I don't want any of my records to sound like one style throughout. That's why I choose different grooves and songs: tunes that are sensitive and slow as well as pieces that are abstract and fast. The approach I want to take with my records is to give the listener a variety of grooves, concepts, and composers.
I've always been singing. Since day one. I started doing musical theater and you have to sing in musical theater and so that's where I got most of my training. So singing on stage, you just inevitably, when you're around other vocal artists, you get better at singing.
I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.
As someone who listens almost exclusively to contemporary hip-hop and R&B, I definitely like "No Bullshit" by Chris Brown, and melodically I'm really into what he's doing - that song is kind of singular because it's got this piano intro and outro. But obviously I'm not singing about what he's singing about. What we want out of our songs is not the same thing.
What I mean is I'd rather be a Burt Bacharach figure, where if I did gigs there'd be other people there singing the songs. I just don't want to promote myself as an artist if you like. I've been writing loads and loads of songs and I want to feed them out and produce artists. But I have to do that from a center. There has to be a structure. It has to be from a company that has an image, that has a name.
When all my friends were into punk, I'd be singing versions of soul ballads. I thought, 'Oh my God, I don't want them to know I'm doing this.' But I really enjoyed singing those songs.
I'm always going to have the puppets, probably not for the rest of my life, but I'm not going to stop doing ventriloquism anytime soon. I'm just going to add singing, recording songs, and maybe playing in a TV show.
I got to the point where I'd featured on songs; I'd done backing singing for major artists. I'd done all these shows, but it was always for other people.
The best artists are people who don't consider themselves artists, and the people who do are usually the most pretentious and annoying. They've got their priorities wrong. They're just doing it to be artists rather than because they want to do it.
I think my legacy is important because my songs - perhaps more than those of any other songwriter I know - cover every movement from 1965 on, socially and artistically. If you want songs about ecology, I've got ecology songs; if you want songs about spirituality, I've got spiritual songs.
Anytime I hear songs that are so honest, whether they make the person who's singing it look good or not, there's a level of honesty that resonates with people.
If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something. Or, you have to be singing in a vocabulary that has tremendous appeal or else people are not going to want to sit there for eighty or ninety minutes hearing this stuff.
My mind was so geared towards being a performing artist, singing all these classical pieces, but the sense of loneliness I got when I moved from New York to El Paso meant that writing turned into singing. I'd sing all these songs, and they'd make me feel better. Songs that crafted the way my life was going to go.
I write songs for the same reasons most artists write songs -because I have to, whatever that means. Because I want to talk about myself or have demos that need to be sent off. I like doing it. It's my job and I like doing it. For the most part, it's pretty easy for me.
Anytime you see Beyonce, Jay Z, Kanye West. Anytime a young black person's doing good, that's motivation for everybody else. Anytime, anytime, it's motivation. Use that fuel to push you forward. That's what I did.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!