I've begun to realize, as I'm getting older, that I was taught to go for a certain kind of stillness to get things done. I missed that in my life. I loved my grandmother's property, out in South Georgia right above the Florida line, so I just thought I'd find some property where I could feel that again.
Lizz Wright
I live just above a creek, and it's always very active. It almost sounds like the ocean. It's constant, and there's lots of big rocks in it, so it's got a great sound. It's one of my favorite things.
It's hard to know who you are until you're cracked open a little bit.
I think, as singers and performers, we are ambassadors of the human experience. I don't want to get bored just talking about myself.
I'm so grateful for just the inherent mercy of life.
I know how to make myself comfortable.
My mom has a couple great tricks, but my father is consistently a good cook. He's extremely avid about health and fitness and a bit obsessive. He always talks about garden-fresh food.
The whole musical institution of the church involves a lot of different styles of communication at the same time. Things like call and response. Sometimes they use the music to pray and work things out. And there's so much repetition in gospel, it's like churning butter.
I come from a family that has grown their own food from well into times of slavery, provided for themselves and people around them. So I found, through conversations about the earth and about the house with my neighbors, a lot of common ground.
What I learned about singing in the church has gone into what I do now.
I always want to do good work and enjoy doing it.
No matter what happens, I can go back to the mountains. I have nature and my wonderful friends and neighbors. I get so much by being there.
'Salt' is like this snapshot in midair, an action shot. It's about my relationship with the church, the classical and choral music that I dealt with in school, and my new introduction to jazz. It's very hard for me to listen to from beginning to end, because I hear how lost I was.
Salif Keita's one of my favorite artists.
I love talking to other musicians on tour and finding out what we all have to do, not just as artists but as business people. A lot of us are investing and trying to use social media. It is such an interesting level of responsibility and engagement on all these levels. I don't know how one can do this without absolute commitment and faith.
I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.
I come from a lineage of ministers.
Everyone I perform and tour with looks out for each other; we ensure we stay healthy.
Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience.
I love singing all types of genres.
If we work on it, we can absolutely refuse any notion that suggests that after generations of contributing to this country, being a part of the bones and the marrow, that I'm supposed to be uncomfortable here.
I get bored very quickly.
I didn't wait around for my parents' opinion about my venture out into contemporary music.
I call myself a singer-songwriter influenced by the gospel and jazz tradition. Naturally, because of my lifestyle and love for nature, there's a lot of folk and Americana there because that's just my life.
Singing in church is a very different approach to music. It's very much about transcending the idea of self. It's about finding something greater that connects all of us. Gospel music is about tapping into that.
Jazz has a lot to do with being very present. You know the structure, then you flow through it.
My father was very strict, a very militant parent, because he wanted us to be very focused kids. He sold the televisions, so we didn't watch TV. And he didn't want any music playing that wasn't gospel or inspirational music. In fact, he didn't even like a lot of gospel because he thought it was too bluesy.
I've always been genuinely interested in the spirit world. I've seen things I will never talk about because I'd be a fool to. You can't lay out that world in words.
I think living in a way that's close to nature makes you feel like that - makes you feel how thin the veil is between life and death.
I'd listen to the radio, especially when my parents were out on house calls to pray for people - you know, shut-ins. Sometimes, if we were incredibly sneaky, we could do it at night when everyone was asleep.
I'm in love with the way that Ella Fitzgerald delivered a lyric. She would deliver a lyric with the kind of clarity that would make you wonder why it was written, and make you think about the writer. I think every writer hopes an Ella of any genre or anytime gets a hold of their work and works the song like that.
I've always loved the woods, and I've always loved gardening and a lot of solitude and quiet.
As I grow older, I hope I can fully embody my grandmother's remarkable peace.
As a southern woman, we often define ourselves by who we are with. But I wanted my life to be built differently.
I am more prolific when I have something to respond to. I get my juice from people and real stories and things that seem common but are amazing.
I'm kind of a subtle person.
I'm a preacher's kid, I'm big-boned, I have giant feet, and I've always been able to run fast, and so I had this sense of, 'I can't fail. I'm invincible. I'm made of green juice and concrete; nothing's gonna happen to me.'
Music is primal: when it's done without pretension, you can really feel the shape of someone's soul.
A lot of people in the African-American community are raised by grandmothers, and that relationship is a special bond and circle.
By high school, I was putting the music for the services together and teaching Sunday school to everybody's kids.
I think of myself as an interpretative singer and a songwriter.
Where I fit genre-wise, it's hard to tell. It's a fickle wind. But I have to believe there's always going to be a place for the songs inside of me.
Whoever is playing with me, they participate in the arrangement; I learned from Craig Street to really pool the stories and the skill and the voices of everybody around you on the bandstand to build an arrangement in the moment.
I see 'Grace' as an affectionate refusal of things that just aren't true. With all our power and money and influence, we still can't raise up high over people's consciousness.
I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation - that constant conversation and tension - I've always wanted in every genre and song that I perform.
Jazz has provided the framework for all the other stuff that I've done.
There's a beautiful, kind of seductive trap in being autobiographical in our writing of songs: We just get stuck in our own syrup, and it's so personal that it almost can be embarrassing to the listener.
The women and the men are teachers and preachers in my family, and a little bit of both those fell on me.
I'm a real Otis Redding fan, and I just think he sounds so good. He sounds like he's always at the end of a long day, and he just won't give up. I just love his wearied devotion - that beautiful, beautiful, weathered sound.
'Moffou' is one of my favorite records.
