Tom Glazer Quotes

After my mother died, I found, a little book of hers which recorded everything I had ever done, how I had done it, and how proud she was of her son Conrad.

On the death of his brothers, my dad lied about his age and joined the army in 1918. He was in the trenches long enough to be gassed and contract the early stages of tuberculosis from which he would eventually die just before my birth.

Having lost both my parents as a teenager, family is so important to me, and I cherish my time with my children and grandchildren. I have four children, and they all became lawyers - as I was myself before I got into music.

I had just lost my dad and I remembered all the songs we used to go and hear at concerts, and the records around the house and sometimes we'd play together.

I have my granddad's record collection, which I treasure, and my father's - Rolling Stones to Sidney Bechet.

My father has been a voice of encouragement in times of desperation for so many people. But he died when I was so young that, for me, his music has been a way for me to get to know him better.

My mother's parents died when I was quite young, so I would like to be able to go back and know those people as an adult.

I'm still going strong. I have been very blessed and still am. I love singing. Obviously, at my age, I don't tour with as many dates throughout the year as I did in the past. But I do this to honor my father who was also a singer. I still miss him and his encouragement.

One of the reasons I do the Led-Zeppelin Experience is because I really didn't get the chance, while he was alive, to understand how great my father was. I never got the chance to tell him.

One day, I was at my grandmother's house, and I found diaries that she kept as a young girl. I opened one to a page that had flowers glued inside. In her childish handwriting, my grandmother wrote, 'Pap died today. I am very sad.' The fact that this was true and that I could see the withered flowers made a huge impression on me.

I suppose if your parents die in their 50s and you are approaching 50, you see that you are definitely not in the first half of your life any more.

My dad was a serious alcoholic, and ultimately, that's why he died. When you're a child of someone who struggled with things like that, you look for the common thread. Is there a pattern? Is there an inheritance of pathology in some way? That haunts me.

My mother passed away when I was seven. She had a piano in the house that she was teaching my sisters how to play. That was where I first encountered music, through her.

My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don't know. Probably died.

Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.

I've loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother's a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs.

My mother died when I was 17, and I moved in with my dad to make a 12-month pig's ear of retaking my A-levels.

I'm actually the son of Mary Guibert. My mother was born in the Panama Canal zone and came to America when she was five with my grandmother and grandfather, and that was the family I knew. Everybody sang; everybody had songs all the time, and they loved music.

My mom had a heart attack, and it came out of nowhere - she was 54. My dad had leukemia for about 3 months. He was 80 when he passed. My dad had me later in life, and so he had leukemia and was alive for about 3 months between diagnosis and passing away.

My father died when I was 11. He was a vaudeville comedian. He worked in one movie, 'Ladies of the Chorus,' as Marilyn Monroe's father.

My mother wrote a book. Unfortunately, it ended up being published posthumously. But I'm glad she did, because it taught me a lot about my family that, otherwise, I probably wouldn't know.

One of my main wishes in wanting to write about my mother was to explore the impact of her death on my life, explore our relationship, think about the different versions of myself that I was with and without her. I also had the really strong wish to bring her to life for my children, who were born after she was gone.

When my dad left public life, I was 13 years old. I went through my teen years and into adulthood in relative anonymity. After my dad's funeral, I was suddenly recognizable to people I passed on the street.

My grandma passed away from cancer, and actually, when I was 18, I had an experience with melanoma - it's in the family. I had that experience where everything comes into perspective. It's the weirdest thing, 'cause you're like, 'It will never happen to me,' and when it does, it's like, 'OK, wow.'

I didn't grow up with my dad, or around the whole legacy. I was post-Motown, so I'd always hear stories and wonder what was it like.