Paul Desmond Quotes

My dad has been playing guitar basically all his life. He's sort of who got me into rock music.

I knew the full 'Judy Garland Carnegie Hall' double album set at age 2. And then my mother wondered why I was gay. I was like, 'Are you nuts? You would make me get on the table to sing Judy Garland songs and you're upset?'

I was singing when I was two years old, and my parents were very supportive, but they weren't musicians themselves.

All my musical foundations go back to the age of 3. My family tell me that I used to listen to the old crystal set, then go to the piano and pick out the tune that I just heard.

I never picked up a guitar as a kid, partly because my dad didn't want the noise in our little back-to-back in Sheffield.

Nobody played instruments in my family. My father got that bug and said he wants his son to play saxophone.

My parents pushed me toward trombone because they didn't need another trumpet player.

I always loved singing because I grew up in a very musical family. My mom wasn't able to do music professionally because her parents wanted her to get a 'real job,' but she played guitar.

When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always wanted to be a singer.

The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.

And I think that's why I was going to be a musician. I was very rebellious. And I didn't want to be an actor. My father used to say to me you should be an actor if you want to be in the arts.

Being the youngest, I was a bit of a daddy's girl and sought attention from an early age by singing. I don't know where I got my voice, but ours was always a musical house.

Most things in my life I had before leaving home. Values, support, great family. I was shaped at an early age. A musician playing guitar, I wanted to be a folk singer.

I think naturally my orientation is from my father.

Everybody in our family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took a year or two of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons.

My mother encouraged me to be artistic. It was written in a contract at an early age that I would be an artist.

I was nurtured to play music pretty much from birth.

I was the product of very young parents, and they had wild ways. My mother was in a punk band. Rebelling would have been learning to play piano.

My mom was always driving me back and forth to guitar lessons, growing up. She was super supportive and probably my biggest cheerleader.

My father being a theatre person used to compose music for his plays. He noticed me singing one of his compositions at a young age and he was amazed. From then on, he taught me the little things that he knew about music.

My mom is a gym teacher, and she's not musically inclined, but she always wanted to help me out with music as best she could.

My parents actively tried to discourage me from going into music - especially Dad, because of the troubled times he had in his youth.

My dad was a big influence because he did a lot of music.

A lot of my friends in my student days complained about how their parents made them play an instrument when they were kids. I always felt compassion for them and didn't believe a parent could be so cruel, but when I check today, those complaining friends grew up to be quite successful, and many of them are now making their children play.

My good fortune was that I was born into a home where Mum and Dad encouraged me to learn the piano.