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" 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. "

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" I'm in love with the way that Ella Fitzgerald delivered a lyric. She would deliver a lyric with the kind of clarity that would make you wonder why it was written, and make you think about the writer. I think every writer hopes an Ella of any genre or anytime gets a hold of their work and works the song like that. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" I know how to make myself comfortable. "

" 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. "

" Life is good. It might not go the way we plan it, but that's fine. We just do what we can. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My father was very strict, a very militant parent, because he wanted us to be very focused kids. He sold the televisions, so we didn't watch TV. And he didn't want any music playing that wasn't gospel or inspirational music. In fact, he didn't even like a lot of gospel because he thought it was too bluesy. "

" I always want to do good work and enjoy doing it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 didn't wait around for my parents' opinion about my venture out into contemporary music. "

" I've begun to realize, as I'm getting older, that I was taught to go for a certain kind of stillness to get things done. I missed that in my life. I loved my grandmother's property, out in South Georgia right above the Florida line, so I just thought I'd find some property where I could feel that again. "

" Everyone I perform and tour with looks out for each other; we ensure we stay healthy. "

" I love singing all types of genres. "

" I see 'Grace' as an affectionate refusal of things that just aren't true. With all our power and money and influence, we still can't raise up high over people's consciousness. "

" 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. "

" 'Salt' is like this snapshot in midair, an action shot. It's about my relationship with the church, the classical and choral music that I dealt with in school, and my new introduction to jazz. It's very hard for me to listen to from beginning to end, because I hear how lost I was. "

" 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. "

" There's a lot of pressure that comes from the mainstream stuff, and already people who have been saying - people who don't know any better - have been saying things to me like, 'You should really think about neosoul. You'd definitely be more successful in that.' But that's not my expression. "

" 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 come from a lineage of ministers. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "