Quotes & Sayings About Music From Singers

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments. It is not the violins and the cornets-it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza-nor that of the women's chorus; it is nearer and farther than they. — Walt Whitman

You had to give, uh, a lot of consideration to the fact that, uh, the artist had to come back into the mike area and start singing, especially the background singers, you know. And you had to make sure they had a couple of bars of music in order to catch their breath. And uh, in many cases a lot of choreographers didn't give that, uh, the proper thought. — Cholly Atkins

My influences in this world have always been Crazy Horse and Malcolm X, my overall influences. But I was influenced by rock n' roll, blues, and country music. I was influenced by singers. — John Trudell

Van Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of modern popular music. — Greil Marcus

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 not really a folk singer, but I love the music and there's certain lines that will get just stuck in my head, and they seem to be stuck there for a reason, and I start singing them. — Sam Amidon

A singer's biographical film should have their music and their voice. — Ahmet Ertegun

All singers have this fault: if asked to sing among friends they are never so inclined; if unasked, they never leave off. — Horace

I have such happy memories of performing in a choir and I don't think I'd have got where I am today without all that experience. So my advice to young singers is to either join your school or church's choir or find one in your local area. Choral music at any level teaches you so much about musicianship and blending your voice. — Katherine Jenkins

For me, the intent in a song is to sing it. I compose songs, meaning I'm writing words to be set to music; I'm intending it to not be recited. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I'm a poet, and there really isn't a contradiction, at least for me. — Cornelius Eady

Having been a singer in a band, back in my youth, music is really important to me. — Mick Garris

Etta James is my all-time favorite singer. I've said it in every interview, in every story, in every on- and off-camera question. That music was always such a huge escape for me, even from a young age. — Christina Aguilera

I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say "rock". Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him "soul". They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap. — Miles Davis

They were strong singers, with swift minds and open good humor--arrogant enough to think they could stand on a stage and dogged enough to have done the work to get there. — Vivien Shotwell

You could live without the opera singer, but not without the services of the baker. On this ground you might say that the baker performs a greater service; but no lover of music would agree. — Bertrand Russell

I'm called a folk singer, and I'm not too sure about that. I went about my life approaching music not from the point of view of a singer, but from the point of view of an actor. That's how I first started to sing. — Harry Belafonte

Then from the neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When I discovered music - when I discovered the craft of shaping a song - my being fell into place. — Charlotte Eriksson

Well, Jeff Buckley for me is one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. And the reason why is he has an amazing range, amazing emotional power in his voice. And the music he put around it also just had this passion and this soul to it and this spirit to it that very few artists have, and he passed at a very young age. — John Legend

Artists make art. Singers sing. Players play. Gypsies travel. Music lights fires everywhere. It's like oxygen! — Ann Wilson

Gordon Lightfoot has created some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time. He is Bob Dylan's favorite singer/songwriter - high praise from the best of us, applauded by the rest of us. — Kris Kristofferson

For most singers the first half of the career involves extending one's repertoire, the second half trimming it. — Ethan Mordden

I listen to older music a lot more than new singers. I listen to whatever's on the radio, but when I want to listen to something that moves me I put on a Stevie Wonder record. — Mariah Carey

When we first meet what we love, we could become poets for our longing. When we are removed from what we love, we become singers of grief and weavers of elegant description. — Martin Prechtel

I think what makes the Byrds stand up all these years is the basis in folk music. Folk music, being a timeless art form, is the foundation of the Byrds. We were all from a folk background. We considered ourselves folk singers even when we strapped on electric instruments and dabbled in different things. — Roger McGuinn

It may be that my most helpful contributions to music aren't my compact discs but my articles about other great singers of the past for American Heritage magazine. — Susannah McCorkle

I'm not a singer, a walking instrument like Aretha Franklin. When you get an Iggy Pop record, you don't get "Iggy Sings." I am also a style of music, an approach. — Iggy Pop

They're great instrumentalists, singers and songwriters and they have this unique way of blending contemporary with traditional. The result is this beautiful mix of timeless music. — Cindy Cashdollar

I'd say music runs in my blood. My parents are exceptionally talented singers, so even before I was born, it was a known fact to them that I'd become a singer. Thanks to my genes, I started off at the age of three and since then, music has meant everything to me. — Sonu Nigam

Moreover, knowledge and investigation help promote wonder they do not destroy it. Whatever our tastes, we can generally appreciate such things as music, art or wine better when we understand a bit about them. We read up on our favourite singers or artists because we feel we can appreciate their work better when we know how they think and what they bring to their work. The giddy delight and curiosity that comes from marvelling at the beauty of this universe is deepened, not cheapened, by the laws and facts science gives us to aid our understanding. In a similar way, the psychological tricks at work behind many seemingly paranormal events are truly more fascinating than the explanation of other-worldiness precisely because they are of this world, and say something about how rich and complex and mysterious we are as human beings to be convinced by such trickery, indeed to want to perpetuate it in the first place. — Derren Brown

I lived in Italy for a number of years and I was really digging around trying to get my hands dirty, trying to learn about Italian music. And what I ended up gravitating towards was this stuff from the '50s and '60s and maybe early '70s, where there were these incredibly talented pop singers that weren't using pop bands. — Mike Patton

Music is the purest form of art ... therefore true poets ... seek to express the universe in terms of music. The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his very life. They are not materials gathered from outside. — Rabindranath Tagore

Ali Woodson was one of the few Iconic Soul-Singers left from the Motown Era that could STILL sell out a crowd, light up a party, & make the women scream! Ali & I have loved, fought, flew & cruised these United States together. His raspy but golden tones will be missed but his music, acting & friendship will last in my heart 4-ever. — Luenell

I've worked with Emily Skinner and I've seen Linda Balgord's work. I saw Harvey Keitel at the call-backs. But generally I don't know many people. They're not only good performers; they're really good singers! This show is for people who have more of a history in reading music. From what I already know about the ensemble, it's going to be great. And I can't wait to meet the rest of them. They're the real deal. — Max Von Essen

I don't really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It's good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly - rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it's their style. — Ellie Goulding

I think one of the ways that these young singers got started is that they would end up in clubs. And a lot of them were mafia owned. And so there was almost an unspoken kind of mafia sponsorship, which is just a very interesting part of that area's music history. — John Lloyd Young

Ser Rodrik groused. His opinion of singers was well known; music was a lovely thing for girls, but he could not comprehend why any healthy boy would fill his hand with a harp when he might have had a sword. — George R R Martin

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz. — Robert Wyatt

In country music the lyric is important and the melodies get a little more complex all the time, and you hear marvelous new singers who are interested in writing and interpreting a lyric and in all form of popular music. — Dinah Shore

Curlicuing around the note allows a singer to mimic the sense of event in soul music, the sense that something is happening which has not happened before and cannot be repeated, by mimicking the apprehension of soul, those moments when singers dramatize their struggle to bring out of themselves what lies buried in them, inaccessible, until this moment, even to themselves. — Greil Marcus

I don't understand the music but I certainly understand the girl singer! — Nikita Khrushchev

I love music; I was never the type of singer to say, "This is my specific genre, or I only sing R&B music." I feel like as a singer, you should be limitless and you shouldn't be stuck in a box. — Heather Headley

Christina Aguilera has her own style, so good on her. I don't think anyone's every told her to put on some leather chaps and get her noonie out. She's an amazing singer but a lot of her music I can't even hear. — Amy Winehouse

I've always said that Adele has turned so many people on to British singers - whether female singers or just like music from this country in general. — Ellie Goulding

I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early. — Jessye Norman

Singers come and go; the music business waxes and wanes. The blues are popular and unpopular, often at the same time. — Linda Barnes

We always get back to old soul singers like Nina Simone, and how her recordings sound. Also new music like Tobacco, or people that use a mixture of analog and electronic music. — Jose Gonzalez

I normally listen to Spanish music - well, Latin music. I like a lot of singers. — Rafael Nadal

To put an arrogant 'famous' singer in her place: pretend to be deaf. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers. — Ronaldinho

I would advise all young musicians to not only experience and play chamber music, but to go to operas, speak to the singers, to explore and expand your horizons. — Wu Han

I went out and started on my way up in television. I wrote music, I wrote books, I played an instrument half-ass. I would always have liked to play in a band. I would always have liked to be a substantial writer, to write country music for big singers. I had all sorts of proclivities, but I never had any big success. — Chuck Barris

It was not really the external influences that made me a singer. Music was within me. I was full of it. — Lata Mangeshkar

Sometimes I like to make music together with a singer or with singers. — Klaus Schulze

I don't call myself a singer, I'm a voice, lent to music — Debby Ryan

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles. — Ahmet Ertegun

Commercial to the core, Elvis was the kind of singer dear to the heart of the music business. For him to sing a song was to sell asong. His G clef was a dollar sign. — Albert Goldman

I like to listen to different kinds of music - it just depends on my mood. I love Madonna, Russian singers ... I like the Rolling Stones a lot! — Oksana Baiul

My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument. — Bill Kreutzmann

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home. — Quincy Jones