Quotes About Influence

I have always looked up to Adele and Christina Aguilera as singers ever since I was very young, and now my favorite male singer is Hozier.

Even when I was a kid, I always sort of identified myself with Keith Richards and Slash more than the singers of the bands.

My idols are singers like Billie Holiday and Erykah Badu because there's no gloss on what they do.

I say nice things about Mariah all the time. I tell Mariah all the time how much of a fan I am of her. She's one of my favorite artists of all time... She's shaped a generation of singers.

I listened to a lot of what my grandparents listened to: George Jones, Johnny Cash - a lot of old country singers. Patsy Cline.

Hindi film music has always been completely driven by the plot. We singers never had any say in compositions.

My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music, eventually I wanted to play an instrument.

I think I'm making a difference for a lot of young singers.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

A lot of what I have always done is do other singers.

Harout Pamboukjian is one of the biggest Armenian folk singers in the world. In the '70s, he was making these records that were really Zeppelin-influenced.

I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.

For the most part, I've been influenced by black singers and singers I couldn't sound like. Whenever I tried to do a dark note or a bent note, I would just sound like Hootie And The Blowfish.

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

I grew up listening to Beethoven and old jazz singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Anita O'Day. But those were, like, the only women I listened to - I hated women pop singers.

My influences in this world have always been Crazy Horse and Malcolm X, my overall influences. But I was influenced by rock n' roll, blues, and country music. I was influenced by singers.

I didn't even respect singers until I heard Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.

The only thing is, with me - this may sound weird - there are a lot of R&B singers from that era that I actually don't know. Like, I never grew up on Boyz II Men.

I always liked Nat King Cole. I always wanted to go my own way, but I always favoured other singers like Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald - I loved Ella Fitzgerald. There are so many of them. Nina Simone was one of my favourites - Johnny Mathis.

My parents were both opera singers, and they also were both heavily into religious and church music.

Jaco Pastorius gave the bass a new voice. I mean, he was very inspired by singers like Frank Sinatra. And in a lot of ways, maybe he wanted to be a singer himself.

As a girl, I remember looking up to pop singers, and they all had long, straight weaves and light skin. And I thought, 'That's what I have to look like if I'm going to be fierce and sexy and all those things.'

That was how I had developed my singing style in the first place - imitating other singers like George Michael and Richard Marx.

I've evolved with time and learnt from my daughter which designers and singers are in.