Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" If music sounds dated, it means it wasn't very good in the first place. "

Related Quotes:

" I get up, and boy, I can't wait to paint and study music and keep learning. I just love it. "

" Every day feels like just starting out because I still have so much more to learn. "

" Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records, and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. He just let them sing whatever they wanted, and it became the best record company in America. "

" Fame comes and goes. Longevity is the thing to aim for. "

" The high point for me in my career was when Sinatra called me his favourite performer in the Fifties. And I've been sold out ever since. "

" I'd like to prove that if you take care of yourself, you can actually not regret the fact that you've become an old-timer, but you can just still improve and actually get better. "

" In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him. "

" For many years, I've always been attached to what they call the Great American Songbook, and Kern was a great leader of that because he had the classical training of Europe. He impressed all the greatest composers, like Cole Porter and Gershwin. They couldn't believe he was writing the songs he was writing. "

" I was taught never to compromise: to never sing a cheap song. I never look down at the audience and think that they are ignorant or think that I'm more intelligent than they are. To think otherwise is totally incorrect and runs contrary to everything I was raised to believe. "

" Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me. "

" Singing is a gift. "

" I want to try to prove that at 100, I could sing as well as I was singing when I was 45 or 43. "

" To me, life is a gift, and it's a blessing to just be alive. And each person should learn what a gift it is to be alive no matter how tough things get. "

" As a young boy, I did a lot of foolish things. I made a lot of mistakes. And you live and learn. "

" Gaga is a gorgeous singer, and when she sings a great ballad, I get goose bumps. "

" I study nature, and I realize that no matter how much you learn, you can't top nature. "

" I loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique. "

" I still have a lot to learn. I'm concentrating on learning a lot more about music. "

" No matter what age you are, there's a lot of room for learning. "

" I respected Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. Those were my heroes, and they were 10 years older than I was. "

" The United States created the best popular songs that were ever written, and from the 1920s to the 1940s, it was a renaissance period. It stopped in 1950. "

" To work is to feel alive. "

" Performers should really go to the best schools, like Lady Gaga, you know, she went to NYU and had great teachers... It's best to really study your technique as much as you possibly can so you can have a long career instead of a quick one that's a failure. "

" When you hear a great two-track of a performance in Carnegie Hall, let's say, it sounds like you're right there at that moment. It's true to reality. And the closer it gets, once it gets too technical, it becomes very tinny to hear notes. It doesn't sound right. It has to be natural. "

" Lady Gaga is the Picasso of the entertainment world. She's very intelligent. "

" I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing. "

" More than anybody else I'd like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform. "

" I think one of the reasons I'm popular again is because I'm wearing a tie. You have to be different. "

" Mercer was very clever. He knew the way Southerners spoke and put that into his lyrics. But in that whole era, you had the best. Harold Arlen was just fantastic. Cole Porter was better than anybody, and Gershwin was Gershwin, y'know. Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records, and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. "

" I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today. "