Great Singer Quotes & Sayings

This is a setback. You get back up, you dust yourself off, and you get back in the game. We had a great singer named Ray Charles who wrote a song called 'Drowning in My Tears.' You can't afford to drown in your tears. You gotta go back, rededicate yourself, redouble your efforts, and persevere. — Don King

You don't need to be a great singer to sing, but you have to practice singing to be a great singer. — Debasish Mridha

As for music, my tastes are eclectic. Elvis Costello is my all-time favorite. I listen to a lot of jazz, primarily the great female vocalists, and I am very fond of the late cabaret singer Nancy Lamott. — Laura Lippman

I'm an actor/singer who moves well ... sometimes. I'm actually a great mover but not every style fits my body and a dance call back is my worst nightmare. — Erica Schroeder

Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but my favourite is Sammy Davis Jr. He had incredible versatility in his voice, often doing impressions of people. It's always going to be classic, and you'll never get bored listening. — Anton Du Beke

Never mind the transience of show business and popularity. When we hear Ray Charles, we go, 'That's a great singer.' You don't need a reporter or a writer to tell us. Good is good and it should shine through the years. — Art Garfunkel

To stay a great singer or guitar player, you've got to do it 24/7. That's what I do. — Sammy Hagar

Bruce is still my friend. We don't talk much. We don't have to. He is great and in his own league. I'm not him and he is not me. But we are on similar paths, writing and singing out own kind of songs around the world, along with Bob and a few other singer/songwriters. It is a a silent fraternity of sorts, occupying this space in people's souls with our music. Last year, I lost my right-hand man, the pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith. This year Bruce lost his right-hand man, the saxophonist Clarence Clemons. It's time for another talk; friends can help each other just by being there. Now both of us will look to our right and see a giant hole, a memory, the past and the future. I won't play with another steel player trying to recreate Ben's parts, and I know Bruce won't play with another sax man trying to play Clarence's. Those parts are not going to happen again. They already did. That takes a lot out of our repertoires. — Neil Young

The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

Thank God, 50 years ago I learned that a great song, our entire business is all based on two things; a great song and a great story. Film, television, if you don't have that story, nothing else matters. You don't call anybody else or direct anybody. The same with a song. A great song can make the worst singer in the world a star. — Quincy Jones

A singer can quit once he or she has made ten great songs; a director can finish once he or she has made five amazing films; a writer just needs to write three great books. — Alber Elbaz

I love the first two X-Men movies because I thought that Bryan Singer did such a great job. He elevated that whole genre. He's a very talented director. — Famke Janssen

It's not some great work of beauty and love to be a rock-and-roll singer. — Robert Plant

In Utero is a testament to the artistic vision of Kurt Cobain. It's kind of a weird record, and it's strangely beautiful at the same time. And if you look at Kurt's paintings and his drawings - he even did a sculpture for me - it's a rising, tortured-spirit person. It's kind of weird. It's done well, but it's like what Dave was saying about having your own sound. Kurt was a great songwriter. He knew he had a good ear for a hook [and was] a great singer, great guitar player, and In Utero is a good representation of what he liked in art and how he expressed himself. — Krist Novoselic

Maia Sharp is one of America's great singer-songwriters. Her storytelling runs profound and
deep while honoring a pop tradition that urges you to sing along and feel good. Maia sings with
an angelic voice that's shrouded in stark realism and a healthy dose of cynicism ... it's an exotic
cocktail! — Don Was

Being a songwriter, singer, and a great part of a unit is more important than being Joe Guitar Hero. — Vivian Campbell

The real exertion in the case of an opera singer lies not so much in her singing as in her acting of a role, for nearly every modern opera makes great dramatic and physical demands. — Maria Jeritza

Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval scholar whose ideas became the semi-official philosophy of the Roman Catholic church, wrote that whatever we have in "superabundance" - that is, above and beyond what will reasonably satisfy our own needs and those of our family, for the present and the foreseeable future - "is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. — Peter Singer

When I was younger, all I wanted to do was be a singer, and then I got into a great acting class in New York and became obsessed with that. — Chaley Rose

Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than [John Singer] Sargent thinks. — Claude Monet

Lennon's was one of the first voices I emulated when I began to sing. When we held tryouts in my pal's dad's living room for the singer in our band, I sang a Beatles song that Lennon sang. There is something about the timbre of his voice, something that it conveys, that still gets to me. The quality and the poetry of his lyrics. The wry sense of humor. And the boyishness, in the beginning. There are a great many things that touch me about him ... Lennon was, to put it in his own words, a 'working-class hero.' — Don Henley

Some artists see a gig as an audience worshipping them. I think it is about having a great time together. I have a part as the singer. An audience has a part. Playing a gig doesn't make me high on myself. — Jo Nesbo

Jamie Dornan is one of those guys who has no idea how gorgeous he is. He's crazy in love with his girlfriend and a crazy talent and a great singer and a great actor; just a lovely, lovely human being. It kind of makes you want to throw up a bit, but in all the right ways! — Jennifer Morrison

What I mean is that none of my talents had a - what's that great word - rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer - there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I'm a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do. — Steve Martin

My mother had a great vinyl collection, and she was constantly playing female singer-songwriters. I first learned about classic song structures by listening to them, and Laura Nyro particularly stood out. Her voice was outside what you'd usually hear on the radio; that really appealed to me. — Jenny Lewis

Inanna spoke:
"What I tell you
Let the singer weave into song.
What I tell you,
Let it flow from ear to mouth,
Let it pass from old to young:

My vulva, the horn,
The Boat of Heaven,
Is full of eagerness like the young moon.
My untilled land lies fallow.

As for me, Inanna,
Who will plow my vulva?
Who will plow my high field?
Who will plow my wet ground?

As for me, the young woman,
Who will plow my vulva?
Who will station the ox there?
Who will plow my vulva?"

Dumuzi replied:
"Great Lady, the king will plow your vulva.
I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva."

Inanna:
"Then plow my vulva, man of my heart!
Plow my vulva! — Diane Wolkstein

I listen to Mark Chestnutt and think he's a great singer - and he really does good material. — George Strait

You're trying to be cool now, Leif? Seriously?"
"I am the shit, home slice, straight up," he replied.
"No. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a great effort, but you still need to use more contractions. And your tone is so formal, it's like you're complimenting the pudding at a duke's dinner party."
"Fucking H!" the vampire shouted, shaking his free left fist. He enunciated the g very clearly and projected his voice from his diaphragm, like a trained opera singer.
"It's fuckin' A, not H, but yeah Leif, go ahead, let's throw down. — Kevin Hearne

A German singer! I should as soon expect to get pleasure from the neighing of my horse. — Frederick The Great

How the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world. They were sung. The great beasts were sung into existence, after the Singer had done with the planets and the hills and the trees and the oceans and the lesser beasts. The cliffs that bound existence were sung, and the hunting grounds, and the dark. Songs — Neil Gaiman

I originally wanted to be a singer, but I was average. I made 18 records, but none were that great. I was in a dance band at Bournemouth Pavilion for three years, and I played guitar too. — Tony Blackburn

A great deal of stupidity has chipped away at the massive advantages of Western civilization, which could terminally decline if it remains on the current path. But these problems can be solved - and swiftly - if the right leaders emerge. — Paul Singer

To this day, some of my closest friends say, 'Gaga, you know, everything's great. You're a singer; your dreams have come true.' But, still, when certain things are said to you over and over again as you're growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they're true. — Lady Gaga

Any of Bette Midler's concerts should be required viewing for every actor/performer. She has the audience in the palm of her hands at all times and can switch emotions on a dime: Great singer, great actress, great comedian - fearless. — Bryan Batt

Caroline, sister of William, was trained by him as a singer in the Bath days and had considerable success in Handel's oratorios under her brother's conductorship. (The method of training adopted was for her to sing the violin parts of concertos with a gag in her mouth.) It was with great reluctance that she dropped music to be trained as an assistant astronomer, yet she made discoveries - eight minor planets, one of them named after her. — Percy Scholes

There is no prodigy in our profession. If you see all the great singer of the past, none of them are. — Luciano Pavarotti

I used to be a great blues singer. — Roger Daltrey

The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him
why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. — Mark Twain

I'm not interested, Larry, in being a perfect, plastic pop singer that looks great in bikinis and is on the cover of every magazine. I'm more interested in helping my fans to love who they are, and helping them to reject prejudice and reject those things that they're taught from society to not like themselves, to feel like freaks, that they're not wanted. — Lady Gaga

I started as a drummer, so I sort of took on singing duties by default. I had sung backgrounds and some lead vocals from behind the drums in different bands that I'd been in, and I'd gotten great responses for the songs I would sing. I really started pursuing the possibility of being a lead singer based on the fact that I was working a full-time restaurant job and then playing gigs at night, hauling drums around. One day, it just dawned on me that, 'Hey, I could be in a band and be the singer, and it would be a lot easier!' — Chris Cornell

It is a general rule that when the grain of truth cannot be found, men will swallow great helpings of falsehood. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

I am deeply saddened to hear about the passing of one of my all time heroes, George Jones. Georges' music was real and he was able to touch thousands through his songs. Not only was he a great singer, but he also had the ability to make you relate to every one of his songs, no matter who you are. He and his music will remain timeless in the world of country music. My thoughts and prayers are with his family through this difficult time. — Easton Corbin

I have often felt bad that I am not great at any one thing. Like just a super super singer. Or the Gregory Hines of something. — Jasmine Guy

I don't believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that's dishonest. For example, I'm not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don't, what you hear is pretty much what I sing. — Malcolm Wilson

Bob Dylan is quite a songwriter, and a great singer and musician. I won't bother with comparing myself to him, but I will say that I heard his records at a very young age and I still listen to all his records. — Frank Black

I think, being a male singer, I always hate another great male singer's voice before I can love it, unless it's just really far from what I do. — Mikky Ekko

Frankie Randall is a consummate performer. He is an exquisite jazz pianist and wonderful singer. I had the great pleasure to work with him on the Dean Martin Show and I'm very proud to call him a friend! — Lainie Kazan

[Giordano] Bruno died, despised and suffering, after eight years of agony. From that moment, his works have attracted interest, and he has long been recognized as an important figure in the development of modern thought. Nevertheless, few are familiar with the many and often bewildering pages of his writings. His Italian works have their place in the history of Italian literature. The Latin works in prose and verse are much more bulky and diffuse, but the few who grapple with them are rewarded by passages of great beauty and eloquence. — Dorothea Singer

Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past. — D.H. Lawrence

My current role model is Beyonce. She is such a strong woman. She can do everything. She has kept herself together and has balanced her life perfectly. She is a great singer, great dancer and a great looker and is now a good mother and wife. — Sunidhi Chauhan

The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches. — Jon Landau

Unless you use the vocoder the way Daft Punk use it, it is very limited. When they sing it's almost human. It sounds sexy. I just used it as an effect. It wasn't because I was not able to sing; I'm not a great singer, but I had some hits as a singer, too. It's a nice effect. — Giorgio Moroder

A lot of the new people they choose on shows like 'American Idol' and things like that - I don't ever hear lead singers. They always seem to choose to pick people that are great singers, fabulous singers, but they've never got the voice that makes a great lead singer. — Roger Daltrey

Pushing myself against my own will really, because some of this stuff is hard. I don't consider myself to be a great guitar player, so pushing myself as a guitar player or pushing myself as a singer, as a performer, and just riding that fine line between being so hard on yourself that it's counter-productive and being so hard on yourself that nothing is ever good enough is what drives me. — Cody Johnson

I think my great-grandpa was an opera singer or something. — Jennifer Damiano

Around 5th and 6th grade I thought Dean Martin was the coolest guy in the world; he was a great singer, had his own television show and acted in movies. — Peter Gallagher

Bangladesh is a world of metaphor, of high and low theater, of great poetry and music. You talk to a rice farmer and you find a poet. You get to know a sweeper of the streets and you find a remarkable singer. — Jean Houston

As a singer you're a great dancer. — Amy Leslie

That was the thing about Joy Division: writing the songs was dead easy because the group was really balanced; we had a great guitarist, a great drummer, a great bass player, a great singer. — Peter Hook

That is what diminishes the artist and his song. The artist is now hermetically sealed. The publishing company got him his deal and they expect to profit from his songs. So what if he is a better singer than a songwriter; let's put him in a room with a real songwriter. Something great is bound to come ... except very often nothing great comes out of such contrived match-ups. Nobody knows where a great song comes from, and that's why so many writers credit the Lord as a co-writer (though I notice they never offer Him half the writer's royalties) when they come up with a real gem. — Michael Kosser

Music was my ultimate ambition but I liked all of it. I wanted to discipline myself in dance and acting too and I'd done all three since I was 9-years-old. I could sing, but I didn't become a great singer. — Amy Winehouse

I've been close friends with Katy since teenagers, before she was Katy Perry. She's always been a great resource for me to pull from and watch - from her choice of how public she wants to be about her personal life on down. I also watched her develop from the coffee-house singer-songwriter I knew to her be to playing arenas and killing it. — Bonnie McKee

When I'm singing, it's like I'm at home. And music is a great healer. I think I'd have been a basket case if I hadn't been a singer. — Lulu

Pieta Brown is a great singer/songwriter who possesses major star power magnetism. — Don Was

Zamajobe is great. She's a terrific singer from South Africa. — Lee Ritenour

My personal life is the same. At the end of the day, this is just a job. I love what I do, and it's a great job. But it's like my alter ego. There's Chris Brown the singer. And there's Christopher Brown, the down-home Tappahannock boy that plays video games and basketball and hangs out. — Chris Brown

Lizzy Parks. Check this out, this is brilliantShe is a fantastic jazz singer definitely one to watch from now on, she's got a great voice and she's a great songwriter as well — Jamie Cullum

Coming from the U.K., I can think of so many great songs and musical moments that didn't require a belter of a voice; my favorite singer is Kate Bush and she's not a belter, or PJ Harvey ... I'm definitely more of an alternative girl. — Carmen Ejogo

The best advice I got from my aunt, the great singer Rosemary Clooney, and from my dad, who was a game show host and news anchor, was: don't wake up at seventy years old sighing over what you should have tried. Just do it, be willing to fail, and at least you gave it a shot. That's echoed for me all through the last few years. — George Clooney

A great singer is he who sings our silences — Kahlil Gibran

I know I'm not Freddie Mercury or Ann Wilson, and that's okay. You don't have to be a great singer to sing rock and roll. That's not what it's about. — Taylor Hawkins

John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction. — Pete Seeger

Effective altruism is an advance in ethical behavior as well as in the practical application of our ability to reason. I have described it as an emerging movement, and that term suggests that it will continue to develop and spread. If it does, then once there is a critical mass of effective altruists, it will no longer seem odd for anyone to regard bringing about "the most good I can do" as an important life goal. If effective altruism does become mainstream, I would expect it to spread more rapidly, for then it will be apparent that it is easy to do a great deal of good and feel better about your life as a result. — Peter Singer

I don't think I'm a great singer myself. I'm all right. I've worked with different writers, different producers ... I've just been blessed with the caliber of people I've been able to work with. — Melanie Chisholm

I just don't want to be known as the actress who can sing. I want to be known as the singer who can act, too. It's great cross-promotion. — Mandy Moore

I don't think I ever really knew the right words to 'Hava Nagilah,' which isn't great for a Jewish singer. — Idina Menzel

The quality of the writing, really. Simple as that. Beautiful words. It's very nice as a singer to do great songs, which have wonderful lyrics and strong feelings underneath the song. — Bryan Ferry

And I think that's a singer's job. You know, to really interpret a lyric. There's an art to it, and I think some people are really great at it, like Tammy Wynette and George Jones and Tony Bennett. — Lee Ann Womack

My great-grandmother was born in London, the daughter of a Brixton coachman, and became the most famous singer in Australia. Her name was Marie Carandini, Madame Carandini. — Christopher Lee

Badfinger was pretty good. It was a very sad story, though, because the guy, he ended up killing himself, Pete Ham, who was a lovely fellow, he was a good guitar player and a great singer, he wrote, the most famous tune I would imagine is "Without You", you know the Harry Nilsson record. — George Harrison

I'm not a great singer — Dave Mustaine

As a lead singer, all I want to do is be in my own head and think about how great I am. That's a lead singer's disease. — Mark McGrath

I listen to all sorts of music, but I'm not musically talented. Everyone expects me to be a good singer or musician, but I really am terrible. I'm a great dancer, though. — Jade Jagger

At the end of the day, all people want to do is hear a great singer sing a great song. They don't care about what vocal changes it went through. You can't screw up a great song and a great singer. — Vince Gill

I would love for people to look at me as a great singer but also know exactly who I am, the way that we have loved and respected people like Gladys Knight and Patti LaBelle, having gone through the different stages of their lives with them. That's the type of history I want to have. — Monica

There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learnt a very, very small part of what it can do. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

The next chamber is full of songbirds, if I remember right. Their music is like turtleweed. It will put you to sleep if you listen to it. They sleep most of the time, so the best thing is to pass through without waking them up. If they do awaken, then you must sing loud enough to drown out their music."
"Great," Han said. "Whose idea was that?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Crow said. "I was an excellent singer. — Cinda Williams Chima

Like I say, I'm always writing and if something sticks, it sticks. I get to write with great songwriters in town. Lori McKenna is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters who's ever walked the planet. I get to write with her. The Warren Brothers are friends of mine and I write with them all the time. Lance Miller is a great songwriter. Tom Douglas - you can't get any better than that. I write a lot of stuff but it's got to stick. — Tim McGraw

I met someone the other night who's 28 years old, and he hasn't worked a day since he left college because he's pursuing a dream he'll never, ever realize: He thinks he's a great singer. Actually, he's crap. — Simon Cowell

Gaga is a gorgeous singer, and when she sings a great ballad, I get goose bumps. — Tony Bennett

My mom was a professional. My dad and mom met each other in a movie called 'New Faces of 1937.' My mom went under the name Thelma Leeds, and she did a few movies, and she was really a great singer, and when she married my dad and started to have a family, she sang at parties. — Albert Brooks

If you give the actors a problem 'I'm not getting something out of the scene' and it's the writing, we just don't have the scene, if you give them the problem and just give them some key thoughts they can bring some great solutions to the equation too. So if it's just not perfect, or I'm not getting all I can, I'll open it up to them and say let's talk about it. — Bryan Singer

I've wanted to not play as much. I would like to just sing now. Even though I don't think I'm a great singer, I wouldn't mind just - not being a frontman, per se, but singing and not playing. — Stephen Malkmus

I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi's apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized that she had a great pop voice, in the classical sense. Laura had an instinctive feel for music and melody, and her delivery was sensational. Everybody at Atlantic knew that we had a winner in this young lady, and she came through with great hits that will be remembered for many years to come. I consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly. — Ahmet Ertegun

I've been musically inclined since I picked up an instrument in the fourth grade. I just really appreciate music. I love to listen to it; I love to sing. I wouldn't consider myself, like, a natural singer. I just developed it over time, honestly, just listening. I'm a great listener to music. — Kyrie Irving

Well, the teacher I studied with for nineteen and a half years was a man named Paul Gavert. He was a great lieder singer, so basically I'm a trained lieder singer because of that teacher. The teacher I currently study with - since 1995 - is Joan Lader, who also studied with Gavert. — Betty Buckley

The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand. — Steve Earle

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them. — Etta James

For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

I was just studying with my father, a very difficult task for me since he was a great, great Qawwali singer. — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan