Cecile McLorin Salvant Quotes

The past is filled with people who aren't traditionally thought of as fantastic singers singing these songs that capture people; songs like 'Louie Louie.' I just aim toward that, and I think I've gotten better at it.

I do love singing. I wouldn't say I'm any good, but I definitely love it - especially jazz singing.

I try to listen to over a hundred different songs a day. I listen to every single thing. If you're just listening to pop music, you're just gonna make pop music. I listen to Adele, Yo Yo Ma, Gucci Mane.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.

I started singing at age five and haven't stopped since.

As I listened more and more to the music that moved me, I gained more fascination with America.

I had this voice when I was in high school, except nobody thought much of it then. I developed it by imitating singers I admired - Alison Moyet, Boy George, later on Nina Simone.

I'm constantly discovering things. Like Bobby Bland. Right now I suppose I'm into the Eighties, which turned out to be a great musical period.

There are people I'll always love to listen to, and I'm always ending up discovering new songs by them, which is crazy. Like Stevie Wonder.

I discovered at the age of five that I could sing, and I realised people liked it. The sound that came out made people happy, so I kept doing it.

I love singing with my mouth open. And I'm actually able to sing even better that way.

I'm a huge mimic. That's how I learned to sing. I listened to a lot of Freddy Mercury, obviously.

My mom says that she caught me one day in front of the TV watching opera. I was trying to sing back the opera. She saw that I really liked music, and so she put me in piano lessons when I was about three years old.

I must have been about 13 when I first heard Linkin Park and, to be honest, music had never played that much of a part in my life to that point.

I'll tell you what's crazy: Nobody in my family is musically inclined, no form, fashion, anything. I always had some type of connection to music though. This was long before I ever knew that I could sing, or I ever even tried to start singing. It was something different, man, it made me feel some type of way.

I always loved country music. But I didn't even know I could sing. I just knew I loved the music.

I always sang after every dinner or when we had people over or when we had a show in school. I just loved to be on stage and sing in front of people.

As a songwriter, I feel like, just for inspiration and research purposes, I have to listen to everything.

I remember buying The Fugees' 'The Score' my freshman year and feeling like this whole new world and this whole new conversation was opening up to me.

Getting into the banjo and discovering that it was an African-American instrument, it totally turned on its head my idea of American music - and then, through that, American history.

When I was in junior high school, I knew I really wanted to sing.

I was always singing as a kid. That's honestly all I've ever wanted to do.

My dad gave me the 'Introducing Dionne Warwick' album when I was, like, 14. It was the first time I'd heard Burt Bacharach's songwriting and her voice, and it rocked my world. She's such a great singer and communicator. It really helped me shape my own style.

Dad had four world records, and they happened to be Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ali Farka Toure. I tried singing like these people, and it didn't work.

I always loved music - it was always in the house - and my younger brother is musical, too.