Music makes or breaks an atmosphere. It helps to create the mood and also is a very important aural cue; simply shut off the music when you want people to leave.
Black music has increased my enjoyment of what I do. It has increased my range, my ability to reach into myself and accept myself.
The way I work on music is that I go into my studio, and I start playing music, and I see what happens, and... I never think about it.
In country music, there are certain female artists, like Gretchen Wilson, where you're going to find lesbians because they're responding to that more aggressive side.
Fleetwood Mac were really accessible musically, but lyrically and emotionally, we weren't so easy. And it was our music that helped us survive. But all of us were in pieces personally.
My ideology was, if I just make very happy music, very happy music, then people will forget about whatever their problems are. I will forget about my problems.
I came into the music world in 1988 with a song called 'Ooh La La,' that was like a breath of fresh air in Haitian music.
When we moved back to the US, folk music was all the rage. So I traded in my banjo for a guitar.
But in those days - in the mid-'50s, early '60s - there was less than 300 radio stations that were playing country music and a lot of that wasn't full time.
Because music is a language unto itself, when I'm writing, I need silence. I need to hear the music and the rhythms of the words inside my thoughts.
So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.
I am lucky to live in Austin, so I can enjoy the live music.
I loved 'Fantasia' as a kid because it filled me with wonder, enchantment and awe. It was my first real introduction into classical music. It was totally inspiring to me.
I kind of date my musical discovery back to when I was 13 years old, getting my iTunes account and using that as a major tool to discover new music.
I never got into sports at all until I was in my early 20s, after my music career got going.
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
The idea of a streaming service, like Netflix for music, I'm not totally against it. It's just we won't put all of our music on it until there are enough subscribers for it to make sense.
I was not born into the world of the stuntman and the daredevil; I was born into the world of theater and writing and sculpting and classical music.
It's all about music, because music is basically what's... been my avenue out of maybe being involved in things I shouldn't be.
Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important.
I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.
