My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.
Rita Coolidge
Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.
I was kind of known as a ballad singer. People would send ballads. Some of them would go over my shoulder and float off the top of my head, and I just didn't feel anything. Then I would hear a song that would absolutely shake me.
I'm not stopping. My dream has come true, and I'm staying.
I don't think I was considered to be a cabaret singer because I didn't have patter that was written.
You know, I'm pretty much an open book.
I've got my whole life. There's a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of experiencing the road and the music and different players. It makes me a richer human being. I have a greater source of information to tap into, a wealth of life.
Universal was absolutely marvelous about sitting down with me and listening to my input. It wasn't something where they chose a bunch of songs that were best sellers. They did a marvelous job on the packaging. It's a beautiful tribute.
Possibly, I should have been a jazz singer from the beginning.
I recorded my first jazz record in the '70s.
I've always loved jazz.
I've always wanted to record a jazz record. I did one in the '70s with Barbara Carroll. It's been a journey.
I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.
Jazz radio is not very friendly to pop singers who decide to make a jazz record. But a lot of people have been. A lot of the people I've talked to like the record.
I think the challenges for me was to go into the studio with these incredible jazz players and come up to their level of excellence. That's always a challenge.
It seems that jazz is more cerebral and more mathematical in a sense.
I think you have to have a jazz pedigree to be on jazz radio.
The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.
There was a subtlety about Peggy Lee. It was powerful. There was a valuable use of space. Everything was not cluttered. Her voice was out front and was the key instrument.
If I'm driving to L.A. and have anxiety about making the drive, if I've got Peggy with me, we're cool.
When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else.
I choose things by how they resonate in my heart.
I say what's in my heart, and I do it in my concerts.
