A Quote by India Arie

At 16, I started really loving country music, and Collin Raye just had the most amazing ballads! — © India Arie
At 16, I started really loving country music, and Collin Raye just had the most amazing ballads!
I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music.
I started hitching about the country when I was 16 or 17 years old. I found the music that was played around the country - Irish music - had a particular resonance.
That's how it all started, when I met my wife. My music career, even though I started when I was 16, it never really started till I was like 30, when I started singing and writing my own songs, and that's when it really took off. But prior to that, I was just doing a bunch of covers.
When The Byrds started country-rock, we had no idea there would be such a thing. We were just trying to honor the music. We started listening to country radio. We went to Nudie's and got cowboy clothes.
The fact I wasn't getting off made me realize that I really had to take a hard look at it and at the type of music that I played, which ranges from ballads to country type stuff to rock and rhythm 'n' blues. It takes in a wider spectrum.
My favorite type of music to sing is definitely those big ballads, I just love doing those power ballads.
I've had so many young girls come up to me after a show and say, 'How do I start putting my music on Bandcamp?' or 'I used to play music, but I don't anymore, and I really want to start writing again.' That's just the most amazing feeling.
When I was growing up, I wasn't in bands, and had really no intention of ever doing music. I went out to California for college, and kind of on a whim started making music really as a joke, and over the course of the next five years started playing a lot of shows, and music became this really integral part of my identity.
I've got girlfriends who call me 'Raye' or 'L. Raye', but when somebody calls me 'Lisa', it's like, 'You've got two more times to say that and then I think you're disrespecting me and I'm going to have to cut you!'
I dated someone in the '90s who was really into Metallica, and I remember thinking at the time, 'That just sounds so heavy and hard.' But they have great ballads! Great ballads.
I found my voice singing pop and ballads, almost all of them Colombian artists. When I was 16, my family gave me a recording session with some Colombian producers, and that's where I started my career.
Atul had a child from his first marriage but lost him when he was just 16 years old. His wife died 7-8 years later. He's really had a tough life. Probably these experiences have made him a more sensitive, caring and loving person... Had we been 20 years younger, we definitely would have had children.
I grew up in a really small town. I had a great friend group and an amazing community of people who were supporting and loving and moving out to L.A. it was really hard to find that. Especially just starting off my teen years.
England has had a lot of really bad periods of music, but it's had several amazing periods where they've found an incredible balance, not just between music that's a rather complex and also pretty direct. Like the Beatles.
You can hear 'Human Nature' all over our song 'Elevate.' It's an amazing song. That hooky arpeggio in the beginning is great. Unlike most Michael Jackson ballads, even though I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan, this song is kind of restrained. It's not a huge, crazy song you can dance to - it's just this beautiful piece of music.
Country music has been empowering to women. Women invented it - it was women singing to their children that built country music. The people making country music today might not even know that it all started with a midwife. But it's true, it really did. That's where Michael learned to shake it the way he did. It wasn't from old Papa Jackson, I'll tell you that.
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