My cousin was Ron O'Neal, who was 'Superfly.' Films like 'Shaft' and 'Superfly' were the biggest things out there in the early '70s. It's hard to remember just how big they were - how much impact they had on the culture, the music, the fashions, the hair styles.
My music has shaken hands with the world somehow - it's a beautiful disease, and I'm glad I got it.
Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
One time I introduced my orchestra as the Shampoo Music Makers instead of the Champagne Music Makers.
The music industry is quite brutal and quite harsh and can be spirit shattering, but it's an honour to be a musician because your job is to make sure people enjoy themselves; to make people forget about their troubles.
I really don't have any shelf music.
I get a lot of calls from families and people who have served time and they say, 'Thank you, Sheriff. I hate the tents.' That's music to my ears.
Pop is the most competitive form of music there is. You are always fighting to be adopted and accepted by the masses, and it's always shifting.
I've got a very short attention span, and this has been part of the reason I'm so kind of dumbfounded at the fact that I've still stayed with music. Nothing has ever stuck for me, and music's the only thing that's managed to stick out for a long period of time.
I'd love to make short film videos pushing the conventional standards of what a country music video can be.
All roads for me lead back to Mozart. In his tragically short life, he breathed new life, fire and meaning into every form of music that existed in his time.
The idea of 'raw' music, to me, is honesty: getting people to feel you with the least amount of production possible, the shortest distance traveled emotionally, sonically.
When you see the same familiar faces, it's nice when you get a chance to play with the same musicians. You start to develop this shorthand so everybody knows where you're at and where you're going, but then again, there are always surprises. But the more people are comfortable with the material, the more free you can be with the music.
What kind of shorts I wear has nothing to do with music.
As a kid, I would listen to anything that had a live orchestra or ensemble playing, so that covered everything from show tunes to eclectic jazz things to film soundtracks to classical music. They're all inspiring to me.
I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago - you'd have to put that into better English for me, thank you - they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes.
I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like... except for Show Tunes.
If you try to do that in pop music - to play only rare show tunes, for example - people don't come.
I wanted to first build a platform and then use it to shine a light on music/people that I believe in. This record label is for people across all corners of the world, to showcase all genres of music.
Everything I do, I'm always playing music. When I wake up in the morning, I'm playing music. When I'm showering, I've got music playing. When I go to the field, music is playing.
