Quotes from Beth Hart

I wrote my first song when I was four, and I played it at my piano recital.

Meditation is really good. I do that a lot with my bass player Bob, and we do TM: transcendental meditation.

The transition from fan to performer to recording artist, for me, was like learning how to dive... and each board got higher and higher.

On piano, I tend to write either gospel or singer-songwriter songs, sometimes kind of rocking blues songs. But the more heavier rock stuff I will write on bass.

I'm writing all the time when I'm at home. When I'm on the road, I just get ideas, and I put it on my iPhone.

'I'd Rather Go Blind' was a song I did on an album with Joe Bonamassa called 'Don't Explain,' and I've always been such a huge, huge Etta James fan.

I was very neurotic as a kid, but I also used to pray to God as a young kid in school. It was a form of meditation to slow my head down and not make me feel nervous.

So many people that I've wanted to work with have died. I was so crazy in love with Amy Winehouse. When she died, I felt like I lost my sister all over again. I couldn't stop crying for weeks and weeks! It was horrible! She was so wonderful and so talented.

If I love Etta James, it's not just the voice, and it's not just the song, but it's the energy that connects me to her, so if she is strong, I can be strong, too, and if she is sad, I know I am not alone, or if she is joyous, I can connect with that joy.

I'm not a doctor, but I would assume that anything that you're doing that's harming you, and you can't stop doing it, is a sign of mental illness.

I should be writing songs about happiness all day long, but a lot of my songs get inspired from that place of unworthiness and shame, which really goes with mental illness.

Sometimes when people ask a lot of me, or they're not liking what I'm turning in, especially when I'm working one on one with someone, I can get really insecure.

Each night, we try something new, play different songs, see what works, what goes down well, mix it up a bit until we find the right mix.

What I do is I really enjoy and appreciate the challenge of songwriting and singing and performing and just being really, really grateful at all times. Also, I have no fear or problems with saying no and setting boundaries, you know, with the label, with my management.

I think that's always the hope - I mean, I can't speak for others, but I think other artists, no matter what type of medium they are using - whether it be from painting to acting to dancing, songwriting, or anything like that - I believe the desire is to get to the truth, and I think it's really hard to tell the truth.

I'd be a liar if I said I didn't care what people think, but I would rather have less people who like or approve of me for who I really am than a bunch more people who like or approve me for what I'm not.

I have no idea what was the first record I ever bought, but I think I asked my mom to buy me... um... a collection of Beethoven when I was a little girl because I became very addicted to his music. It might have been piano sonatas.

If you're going to go the way of 'American Idol,' then you better be able to do what you want musically, because just going for the fame will only keep you happy for so long.

I had so much anger and judgement towards myself for my work not being up to the standard that I expected it to be, so I wouldn't allow myself to complete anything.

As a kid, I hated home, and I just wanted so much to learn or do something that could take me away and keep me away forever. And then I got blessed to get to make music and meet people who wanted to work with me. And then, the next thing I knew, I was on the road, and I was gone.

I don't think that Americans are ungrateful, not at all. But I do think that we are a young country, and we have a lot to learn.

I really love Dinah Washington and anything live from her - she had some of the greatest jazz musicians in the whole world, and sometimes she would be with a big band, and sometimes she'd just be on stage with a muted trumpet, upright bass, and a piano.

We all have our ups and our downs, and it's consistent throughout all of our lives. It's not a movie: you don't get to a point where, suddenly, you're free forever - it's life.

I worked with Mrs. Davis for four years, and then she realized, as the material started getting harder, that I had never learned to read. I was just listening as she'd play the song, and I'd play it back. When that happened, she got very upset and stopped being my teacher.