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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Lizz Wright

Song

Relationship

Jazz

" 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 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. "

Lizz Wright

People

Real

" Music is primal: when it's done without pretension, you can really feel the shape of someone's soul. "

" I don't think words always lead to meaning, but the things you can create with them are still pretty amazing. I've been really into Joni Mitchell, for example, but I've also been into some studio stuff, like Bjork. "

" Jazz has provided the framework for all the other stuff that I've done. "

" I have no ancestral link to the mountains. But I really do feel close to mountain culture. Their ways of food, of thinking. The way they hang out with no recording devices and just sing songs with each other. "

" Salif Keita's one of my favorite artists. "

Lizz Wright

Favorite

Artists

" What I learned about singing in the church has gone into what I do now. "

" 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. "

" I get bored very quickly. "

" I think, as singers and performers, we are ambassadors of the human experience. I don't want to get bored just talking about myself. "

" Surrender is working with what happens. "

" 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. "

Lizz Wright

Music

Curious

" I've always loved the woods, and I've always loved gardening and a lot of solitude and quiet. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" It's hard to know who you are until you're cracked open a little bit. "

" 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. "

" I think of myself as an interpretative singer and a songwriter. "

" I'd been trained in choral, gospel, and a little bit of opera. "

" We had no television, and I only heard the radio when my parents went out to a Bible study group. They liked a quiet, meditative house. "

" I want to record, tour, and just live 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. "

" I really just want an audience that is willing to let me live my life and share with them what I get out of my life. "

" So many great singers we know have come from the church. "

" 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 love songs that create moments that are very personal and that tell a story. "

" I studied opera for a year at Georgia State University, but I wasn't interested in that meticulous, technical approach to music. So I left school and went back to jazz. "

" 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. "