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" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Where I come from, music is not a business. Sharing music is a business, but music is not a business. It comes from the people and belongs to the people. "

" The women and the men are teachers and preachers in my family, and a little bit of both those fell on me. "

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

" Whoever is playing with me, they participate in the arrangement; I learned from Craig Street to really pool the stories and the skill and the voices of everybody around you on the bandstand to build an arrangement in the moment. "

" I love talking to other musicians on tour and finding out what we all have to do, not just as artists but as business people. A lot of us are investing and trying to use social media. It is such an interesting level of responsibility and engagement on all these levels. I don't know how one can do this without absolute commitment and faith. "

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

" 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. "

" At 16, I was going to church and playing music for church, and Dad would only pay for piano lessons so I could play at 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. "

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

" A lot of people in the African-American community are raised by grandmothers, and that relationship is a special bond and circle. "

" Making a record and being a touring artist is about cooperation between spirit, craft, emotion, and focus. "

" For me, I just want to sing about life. And since I come from a spiritual background, I turned to jazz, because I feel it's still sacred, like gospel. It's serious music, but it allows room to sing about so much other stuff as well. "

" I'm kind of a subtle person. "

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

" 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 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. "

" Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" I live just above a creek, and it's always very active. It almost sounds like the ocean. It's constant, and there's lots of big rocks in it, so it's got a great sound. It's one of my favorite things. "

" It's very hard for me to place myself alongside another artist. Everyone has something unique to express. "

" 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'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. "

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

" By high school, I was putting the music for the services together and teaching Sunday school to everybody's kids. "

" Surrender is working with what happens. "