Quotes & Sayings About Vocalists

A lot of people said to me, 'Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!' — Carlos Santana

My grandma said - when I was really young and I'd sing along to the radio - why do you sing in an American accent? I guess it was because a lot of the music I was listening to had American vocalists. — Emma Watson

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 think alot of vocalists believe in the sound, or the way they sing it - it's interchangable. — Brian Chippendale

I'm not a big fan of lead vocalists, people who sing but don't play. I never wanted to be in a band where the guy who was up front just sang. I've always thought it better when one of the musicians sings, like Steve Winwood. — Eric Clapton

Well, at the very beginning of the Amboy Dukes, I was doing background but I never sang my own songs. I would sing them for the guys to show them how I wanted the songs to go, but I always had lead vocalists. — Ted Nugent

I've always been at war with the guitar. All vocalists are fighting a war with the electric rhythm guitar. — Nick Cave

Brandy is one of my favorite vocalists. Jay-Z is my favorite emcee outside of Biggie. — Rico Love

The crews that are going to be self-produced are going to make the great albums, as opposed to making these mix-tapes, these compilations - "Me over this guy" It sounds good individually, but the art of the record is something that is lost. It gets to the point where it's just vocalists and producers coming in and piecing things together. — El-P

When I work on music, I never think about vocalists. They're the last person I'm making music for. — Ayshay

When I was young, I never bought records because my brother Joseph played saxophone and had a record player. I loved listening to his records: The Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, all the big American jazz bands, and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ernestine Anderson, and Kitty White, a singer from the US who was a friend of Nina Simone. Nobody in America seems to know about her, but she was quite popular in South Africa. — Miriam Makeba

I listened to a lot of Michael Jackson growing up. A lot of Boyz II Men. I loved Mariah Carey. Just big vocalists. I was always that kid who just wore whatever and did whatever. — Justin Bieber

I am inspired by great food, theater, books, the beach, black-and-white photography, and great vocalists, like Dianne Reeves, Alice Smith, and Shirley Horn. I am inspired by my mentor Diana Castle, who is guiding me towards a truth and honesty in my life and work that I have always longed for. — Erica Tazel

See, Shel (Silverstein) was possessed with one of the worst singing verses ever heard. Musical appreciation is inherently subjective, and it's normally senseless to write about vocalists or instrumentalists as 'good' or 'bad.' But in Shel's case, it's a practical necessity. His voice was a razor-gargled hyena screech. — Peter Cooper

I really like accompanying. I like working with vocalists, I've worked with a lot of poets. — Z'EV

As far as female vocalists, I love Heart, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Laura Branigan, Linda Ronstadt, Barbra Streisand - or going back to when I was a child, Aileen Quinn, the original Annie. — Fergie

I think if Unchained Melody does what I think it can do, I think there is an audience out there that would heave a sigh of relief, that finally there is a melody and orchestration, production and a vocalist that is giving them a song that they can just listen to ... and not be annoyed by the vocal acrobatics that vocalists seem to think is impressive. — Barry Manilow

It's more my own thing if I do instrumentals, but I also do really love collaborating with vocalists, so it's a good balance. — Flume

Sarah Vaughan was the Charlie Parker of the vocalists during the 1950s. — Roy Haynes

Eye was a great discovery. He is one of the great vocalists of all time. — John Zorn

Led Zeppelin is the greatest. Robert Plant is one of the most original vocalists of our time. As a rock band they deserve the kind of success they're getting. — Freddie Mercury

Juanita found herself at Old Jeemy's radio station in a room she could have sworn was a laboratory where creatures with antennas in their heads, knobs for eyes, jagged arms, and dangly legs conducted experiments on the bodies of dead vocalists. — Dan Jenkins

Most of the EDM tracks right now are not very musical, they have one note that keeps playing. You really don't need to be a musician to do records like this, so I think me playing guitar for so many years and listening to rock 'n' roll and real music helps me when I work with vocalists like Lana Del Ray and Miley Cyrus. — Cedric Gervais

The popular music wasn't interesting-bad, it was bad-bad. Auto-Tuned vocalists who couldn't really sing; offensively simplistic instrumentation; grating melodies. Like they thought we were stupid. — Leila Sales

I felt a little uncomfortable because, when I went in to the military, I was the main male vocalist they had and when I came out they had like two or three vocalists. Otis came in when I was in the military, too. — William Bell