I just know so many people who have six or seven foreign languages and have read everything and have musical training and they are still dorks.
I don't have that kind of voice, the big baritone or rousing tenor sound. My wheelhouse was in the frothier pieces. So my appreciation for those older musicals and revivals grew.
But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form.
I wouldn't say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.
A lot of people ask me why I don't expand and explore other musical areas, but I like the plain three- and four-chord rock-and-roll that I call the the semi-blues.
Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.
All my memories seem to happen to music. Memories of my mother and father; waking up early on Christmas morning; the little apartment we lived in above the disco.
Ever since the Beatles, the concept of lovable mop tops, it's a bit of a fantasy, but it's a lovely idea that people make wonderful music and live a wonderful life being friends together. Sadly, life isn't quite like that.
I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life.
Music has always been a huge passion in my life. I've just had such success with my acting that it's really been right alongside of it, and I've always been writing and playing and singing.
I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.
I project love, music and love, and I pray for peace. A good song cuts straight to the heart; sometimes it doesn't need to be too many lines - of course, I do love a good story.
My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.
I wanted to bring back that big, ballad type of music that we used to love so much. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, when they first came out, that's what I grew up singing.
I like Jailhouse Rock and Love Me Tender. The black-and-white films. With music, I tend more toward the '70s stuff because I was at the shows for those, so they bring back memories.
The Minister: Can you think of anything of real value that the outsiders have brought with them? Bess McNeill: Uh... their music!
I usually listen to various kind of singers. Curtis Mayfield was my favorite. James Brown, Tina Turner, queen of soul, I started to get that musical essence from that time before I even do my first song.
I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I've been a teenager - I mean, musically, creatively.
But there is a process that happens when you're making something, be it a musical or a new play. That process takes time, and mistakes will be made along the way, and you will go down and hit dead ends. But it is so public now. Any yahoo with a compu...
It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.
So I am one of those bass players who can do something and musically, it was back then and now it is even more, if you noticed on the new album, I am not playing all the time anymore.
