I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing.
I love Kate Winslet, Rachel Weisz, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench as well. They're all wonderful and they're very inspiring.
I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.
I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.
It's like my parents' musical tastes are the mother and father of my music. It's their fault for making me so emotional and in tune with my emotions!
I studied audio engineering at university. The background I am from, music was never seen as a viable career; it was always a hobby.
I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.
In the music world, concerts unfold strictly according to plan. But, as I'd been finding out, in the book world, things keep changing by the second.
Any club is important. All Latin music movements are born in clubs. There is no better research than going to a club. If your music works, it will bounce up.
The iPod made music mobile, but today, how many devices do you need to walk around with? You want it on just one. And inevitably that's going to be the phone.
There's just no telling what I'll do. But I can say for certain I will continue to play, record, and put out music.
It's always very special for me to work Chicago. Both of the record companies I was with, early on, were based in Chicago. The music was always huge there.
When I started making music, I was so heavy into the hyphy movement. That's something you only know so much about if you were right there living in it, submerged in the culture.
In my opinion, creative control means a lot, I feel like I'm really in touch with who my fans are and what they like about my music, and I'm able to communicate directly with them.
I honestly don't listen to a lot of music - I spend so much time working at my own music.
For a long time I was interested in being a social worker. In a lot of ways I feel that that's all my music is, trying to help people.
My general take on American music since 1969 is that it's just getting stiffer and people are getting more uptight - audience, performance, and palace guard.
I had an opportunity to play baseball in college, but I just didn't want to go to school. I started focusing on my music and it was game over!
Americana Music is about all sorts of different music. It's very free and open: a world where people just like authentic music.
To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.
I've admired Alicia Keys since before I got into the music industry, just everything she represents as a female artist.
