When Billie Holiday sings a song, I hear the song, but I always hear her and her truth.
Even though we didn't actually record it as the Move I had already written a song called 'Dear Elaine,' which I subsequently put on the Boulders album. I thought at the time that was probably the best song I'd written.
I've always been a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde. I always feel that you should keep singles as commercial as possible so that the people can walk down the road and whistle a song. But on the other hand on albums I think you can afford to show people what you can do.
To me, 'Blackberry Way' stands up as a song that could be sung in any era, really. We do it with the new doing all sort of fanfare things in it and it works really well. It goes down great with audiences.
Unfortunately, most of the songs that I write I don't write them with guitar in mind. I just write it as a song and that was probably one of the ones that left an opening for it. The song's all right, I wouldn't choose to sing it now.
It's always a live experience - anything that happens around you. It's so easy to just put it to a song.
What I say is from my heart. You must be sincere. So when I sing a song, people are supposed to feel it.
With this album, I tried not to think too much. If I heard a song that I loved, I promised myself I wouldn't over-think it. If I loved it and if I wanted to cut it, I would.
It is my fondest wish that the gift of song that God has given me will flow from my soul to yours and help ease any burden that might weigh upon you.
The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth.
Everything I do is collaborative. It's just my way. I'm really very interested in how the other musicians perceive the song.
I'm always imagining some sort of story behind the song, even the ones I haven't written. I'm actively engaging in playacting.
The old jazz singers or old blues singers, you always just saw them kind of sitting down and singing. They weren't worried as much about their voice sounding perfect. They would make the song kind of fit their voice.
We just did a few takes of a song and just picked the best one. It was real organic and genuine.
I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.