I went to my first CMA Music Fest when I was 14 and waited in line for two hours to meet two people: Taylor Swift and Hillary Scott from Lady Antebellum. It's very ironic but not accidental that those two people refer to me as their 'little sister' now.
I get to wake up every day and create music. And even when it's a tough moment as far as career ups and downs, it's always something you're passionate about, and it's a beautiful way to spend your life.
As I started to consider a career in music, I hoped for success, truthfully. I didn't imagine anything that would amass the level of the first record, but I hoped that I would be able to sustain a career.
Music is a dialogue.
The passion and spontaneity in music is all gone.
The one thing I do know is that I'm the best Taylor Hawkins drummer there is, and that is all I can hope to be. And when it comes to music, musicianship and skill, there is no such thing as better or worse because so much is personal opinion, and I can see that now.
I want to change things with everything I do, not for the sake of changing things, but for the sake of taking greater and greater risks, or how minimalist I might be able to be, or how I can involve elements or ingredients in music videos that are not musical, for instance.
I really didn't try to make an effort to make urban music, but I am a product of my inspirations.
We live in a connected world now. Some find that frightening. If people are downloading our music, they're listening to it. The internet is like radio for us.
But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.
James Brown was my favorite, my absolute idol. Every time I played with him was like a music lesson, and I never thought I could be so funky! I mean, a white boy from Canada - a Jew - getting down with his funky bad self!
When I was writing my autobiography, these songs came up from time to time which were important to me, and I realized that what they really represented was, they'd come from this age of shared music.
Apparently, there's this whole set of disgruntled people but obviously it's not my intention to offend anyone by changing the style of music that I've done.
Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.
I think it's a reflection of the music business in general, which to me seems very fragmented.
With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters.
This was a time frame when dance music and clubs were having a real impact on culture, and it had an impact on me.
I feel like before I came to the planet I asked God for the gift of music. I didn't want to come here without the gift of music and God granted it to me.
As a woman, you spend so much time either cooking or getting ready to go somewhere. I like to have music when I'm doing either of these things.
I like jazz, rock n' roll, some hip hop - I can't think of any music I don't like.
Even if I wasn't in music, even if my father was a carpenter, some guy in Jamaica would go 'You're just like Bob. You're just like your father.' That happens in Jamaica all the time.
I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted.
My background in music is classical - I did graduate school in music. At that time, I was studying composition, but I was studying classical guitar very seriously.
I maintain music is not here to make us forget about life. It's also here to teach us about life: the fact that everything starts and ends, the fact that every sound is in danger of disappearing, the fact that everything is connected - the fact that we live and we die.
Music is more available than ever. It's up to people to figure out. Ultimately, it's up to the business to figure out what the business is, monetizing that.
It's fun and super exciting to see how other people work, how other people write music, and how other people put things together. To me, it's an endless learning process, and I love doing it because everybody works so completely differently.
I spent most of my 20s playing music. I was in a band, and we worked really hard and did not get very far.
When we moved back to the US, folk music was all the rage. So I traded in my banjo for a guitar.
I organized Sweet Honey In The Rock in 1973. The music was sanity and balance.
To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but, with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed.
All of them had so much to offer us as far as, you know, knowledge in the music industry, and especially Randy and Paula because, you know, they've been artists.
I love doing music, and I plan to do it until I die or as long as I can walk to the piano.
Elvis was a big influence to my music, but Loretta Lynn was, as well.
It's really interesting to go back to '93 or '94 and listen to that music, like the I'll Lead You Home record.
Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find it gets in the way.
Acting and performing music is exactly the same. Therefore, an actor, for instance, who is very impressive, he's not simply imitating or trying to imitate, but he must dominate this kind of feeling, and then he transmits it in a much stronger way.
