A Quote by Zachary Levi
If somebody says 'singer-songwriter' to me, the first person I think of is James Taylor. There are plenty of modern singer-songwriters, but there is something about James Taylor that has always resonated with 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.
What happened was, I always wanted to be a singer/songwriter kind of guy like a James Taylor or Crosby, Stills and Nash type of thing; I went to a lot of coffee houses and used to watch all those guys, but I never had the nerve to get up and do it because singing seems so personal and intimate to me. It was too revealing.
I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It's not that I don't want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.
I think, definitely, I was hugely influenced by - obviously like Adele and Florence the Machine. They were my complete idols growing up. But also, there were a lot of influences from my dad, like singer-songwriters of the '70s like Carole King and James Taylor.
My dad listened to a lot of James Taylor when I was growing up. We had a couple of his cassettes in the car, and we'd go on a lot of long family car trips. It was either strange musicals or James Taylor - or Whitney Houston. It was quite the combination there.
Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.
Anyway, in my performance style, I'm a singer-songwriter. People can call it neo-soul or R&B or whatever. But at the core, when you see me live, I'm a singer-songwriter.
I think I'm different from a lot of singer-songwriters because some of my favorite singer-songwriters told stories. Like John Prine.
I think Im different from a lot of singer-songwriters because some of my favorite singer-songwriters told stories. Like John Prine.
I was part of the first wave of singer/songwriters but I was also in that first wave of singer/songwriters who experienced the music industry when technology started to take over.
I think I come under the singer/songwriter badge. I've always written songs right from the very beginning. Because of my style of playing people tend of me more of a guitar player than a singer sometimes.
I'm not a big songwriter guy. People who are really good singer-songwriters usually left me kind of cold.
When I first got to the White House, I was super anxious all the time about not knowing the answer to every question. And Obama was actually the person who let me be me. He was like, "Alyssa's not the person who wears the Ann Taylor suit. She's not the kind of person who always says the exact right thing." And I'm a bit of a wild animal. I brought a different perspective and I was a little bit more irreverent and casual.
When my dad played me 'Walking Man,' I heard those chord changes and that melody, it completely blew me away. Maybe you wouldn't really hear the James Taylor influences in my music, but they're definitely buried in there.
I can't think of any punk who's put on an acoustic and hasn't just tried to sound like James Taylor.
When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.
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