A Quote by Jose James
If you look at the other singers of Billie Holiday's time, they were really trying to entertain. They were trying to make people feel good. They were singing fast - and she was singing the blues.
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When we were doing noisier shows, they were fun, but we were trying to be really obnoxious and it wasn't like we were trying to make good music. I mean, I'm happier when we have smoothed out a little bit. I think that the spirit of the noise and experimental stuff is still there, but it's easier to do when you're a freshman in college.
People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.
I always wanted to sing, I always loved to sing. As a child I was singing all the time, and my parents were singing all the time, but not the traditional songs because they were very Christian; the Christian Sámis learnt from the missionaries and the priests that the traditional songs were from the Devil, so they didn't teach them to their children, but they were singing the Christian hymns all the time. So I think I got my musical education in this way. And of course the traditional songs were always under the hymns, because it doesn't just disappear, the traditional way of singing.
A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.
There is so much good music from our scene in the U.K., and I'm happy I'm part of that movement. For a long time, we were trying to do what the Americans were doing, we were trying to do what the pop stars from England were doing, and we just didn't understand.
For me, there's a tremendous challenge of singing with Faith, who, in my opinion is one of the best singers in the world. She doesn't get enough credit for being as good as she is. She's so beautiful that people look past her singing. But for a journeyman like me to keep up with her is a real tough sprint.
I had a gig in Sweden. There were thousands of people there, and when I launched into 'I'm Yours,' they were all singing along. It was as if I was singing the Swedish national anthem. I was stunned.
Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.
Church was the thing for me. The fellowship and the message that was given and singing in the choir and singing the solos and really listening to the words that you were singing and seeing how it affected people was huge for me.
I was trying to do Billie Holiday, because she was the voice to be heard at that time.
I think that sometimes you do something that makes a small group of people laugh, which is all we were trying to do; we were just trying to make each other laugh.
I don't look to save the world with any of the movies that I make. I'm not trying to make any political statement with the movies I make. I'm trying to have a good time. I'm trying to entertain people.
That was the division in the hacking world: There were people who were exploring it and the people who were trying to make money from it. And, generally, you stayed away from anyone who was trying to make money from it.
I grew up listening to Beethoven and old jazz singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Anita O'Day. But those were, like, the only women I listened to - I hated women pop singers.
Most of the artists were trying to make a living, trying to get laid, trying to figure out who they were. They weren't trying to change the world. That's what other people put on them. I knew all those people. I knew them all, intimately and well. Bob Dylan. I would say that Bob Dylan is as interested in money as any person I've known in my life. That's just the truth.
I guess, from the beginning, Thurston and Kim were the dominant singers in the band, and although I was singing in bands previously, I guess I mainly deferred to them a lot in terms of who was singing the bulk of the songs.
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