Norbert Leo Butz Quotes

People have this perception of soul music of somebody shouting.

I really like musicals - 'The Music Man,' 'Oklahoma!,' 'Li'l Abner,' 'Annie Get Your Gun.'

The falsetto stuff, it must be a reaction to the black gospel singers that I really enjoy listening to.

I wanted to do Dreamgirls. If they're doing a stage production of Sparkle, I think that would be hot.

Oh boy, I grew up hearing Sam Cooke, The Soul Stirrers, Mahalia Jackson, sitting on Mahalia Jackson's lap in my dad's church.

Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned. But I remember the beauty and thrill of being moved by Broadway musicals - particularly the endings of shows.

Listen to any cantor, any good hazan, sing and you can hear a little bit of Ray Charles going on.

You have to have a little soul in your singing. The kind of soul that's in the spirituals. That's why I'd like to include spiritual material in the sets I do. It's a part of my life.

I love early blues like Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf. I listened to the way these people sang, and it was just beautiful - straight from the soul. That, for me, was an inspiration.

I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll.

When I hear a singer, I want them to be passionate and intense, and soul singers like Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett always seemed to do exactly that.

Black people have always loved the blues - they basically created the blues.

Gospel music was very prevalent in my house. My mother also loved Nat King Cole. That was some of the first music that I heard. Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole and the Mississippi Mass Choir.

The black church in the South is the home of rock & roll.

I grew up loving Etta James and Aretha Franklin and Al Green and Otis Redding, and I just love old-school R&B. It's just music that moves you and grooves you, and it was very important, I think, for music.

Soul music is pain - you can hear the slaves, the beatin' and the hurtin'.

Guys like Clyde McPhatter used to sing their tail ends off!

One of the things my mom used to do - I don't know why she chose me, but she chose me out of her six children to take to the African-American church that was in the town that we lived in Springfield, Missouri. And we would go to the church, and we would sit in the back row, and we would listen to all of the spirituals in the hymns.

I always loved soul music. My dad was a very religious guy, and we would listen to a lot of gospel and soul music. My college girlfriend introduced me to musicals. She listened to them, so that was the first time I heard 'Dream Girls.'

My brothers and I had a gospel quartet, and that was the only music people listened to. But I was already gravitating towards songs by Sam Cooke, and then one day I put on a Jackie Wilson record, and baby, I was thrown right out of the house.

The gospel music and doo-wop is what has informed me personally.

'Dreamgirls' is special to me.

Growing up in the projects, I've been around music all my life. Marvin Gaye, everything man.

I was told all my life to sing like Aretha Franklin, or Adele, cover myself with black clothing and show more soul, sing bigger.