Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over.
When I started getting so many haters and closed doors, I decided to prove that it could be done. I was a divorced single mother of three at the time and a size 12 - not your typical model artist that labels feel work for the music industry.
I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.
I guess my favorite artists are The White Stripes or Tom Waits. The more theatrical the music is, the more I get into it. I also like the quieter folk music, that kind of old-school rockabilly or country. I'm not really picky when it comes to music, ...
What part of people is resistant to an artist doing more than one thing? Is it somehow perceived as greedy? Anyone who has that weird volition to become an actor probably has a weird volition to do lots of other creative things - to write, to play mu...
Music is very nebulous, and you can conjure up a lot of moods with music. But lyrics - they're a lot more tangible. They're much more specific. And you want to say something meaningful and creative and artistic and that tells a story and that takes p...
I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee. Not now, but when I'm 50, when music dies down a little bit. I know lots of artists and actors have those delusions of grandeur, but ever since I was a kid, it's been of interest to me.
Music changes every three months. There's always new artists coming out. There's always new sounds. There is always a new hit coming out. You gotta stay relevant as much as you can and feed your fans as much as you can.
In the '60s, people were still very protective of each field that they belonged to. Avant-garde artists didn't know about rock or pop or jazz. And the jazz people of course didn't want to know about any other music. They were all just kind of protect...
If I go into a relationship with an artist, which at most is going to last five years, we have a 100-page contract covering every eventuality. Whereas with marriage you go into it with no contract, with laws that date back hundreds of years, and I do...
Film-makers are always going to be interested in making movies that plug into society around them. That's what a vibrant, artistically alert community should be doing. After all, it would be sad if we only made films about alien robots.
For most artists, you take what you have and who you are, and then you expand on it to make it more entertaining. Everyone knows actors aren't the same people that they play in movies, but people somehow expect musicians to be a certain way all the t...
George Valentin: [to his own shadow] Look what's become of you... You've been stupid! You've been proud! [the shadow walks away] George Valentin: Get back here, you loser!
Mike Shiner: A man becomes a critic when he cannot be an artist, the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.
Why is there such vanity about hair? I make a point to bathe. I worry about boogers in my nose, and I ask the makeup artist to cover up my pimples, but beyond that, I try not to be too vain.
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
I've been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.
For some reason I've been labeled that and it's fine, but there are a lot of other artists that sing real traditional stuff, so I don't know why they picked me. That's what I've always done.
When I accept a role, I feel that as an artist I have to submit completely to the tutelage of my director. And while I expect to be heard and encouraged and honored, at the end of the day, man, it's the way the director wants it.
I'm doing what all modern artists do now, which is nothing - just sit around and dream about things. I'll do what they call 'the stroke of genius.'
As a hip-hop artist who likes fashion, who can't help but notice people like Kanye West, Tiger, Big Sean and definitely T.I.P. These guys really understand how to be progressive and fashion forward.
