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I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.
--
As quoted in Nat King Cole (1990) by James Haskings

 

Nat King Cole

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I think that Luis Miguel is the best singer in Spanish. Things have to be recognized as they are. Luis Miguel is the best singer. I'm telling you from the standpoint of a fellow singer, a professional. I dedicate myself to this and I hear many people singing. I could say it about another person who sing very well, there are many people who sing very well, but he is the best singer and it must be acknowledged.

 

Luis Miguel

 

Bel canto does not mean beautiful singing alone. It is, rather, the technique demanded by the composers of this style — Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. It is the same attitudes and demands of Mozart and Beethoven, for example, the same approach and the same technical difficulties faced by instrumentalists. You see, a musician is a musician. A singer is no different from an instrumentalist except that we have words. You don't excuse things in a singer you would not dream of excusing in a violinist or pianist. There is no excuse for not having a trill, for not doing the acciaccatura, for not having good scales. Look at your scores! There are technical things written there to be performed, and they must be performed whether you like it or not. How will you get out of a trill? How will you get out of scales when they are written there, staring you in the face? It is not enough to have a beautiful voice. What does that mean? When you interpret a role, you have to have a thousand colors to portray happiness, joy, sorrow, fear. How can you do this with only a beautiful voice? Even if you sing harshly sometimes, as I have frequently done, it is a necessity of expression. You have to do it, even if people will not understand. But in the long run they will, because you must persuade them of what you're doing.

 

Maria Callas

 

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

 

Samuel (novelist Butler

 

Q:What are you listening to on your Walkman?
A: I listen to Jeff Buckley. He's my favorite singer. We actually cover a Jeff Buckley tune called "Eternal Life" in our set. When he died it really hit me, because he was an incredible singer who only did one album, Grace, and his voice was so beautiful that I couldn't believe it when he died. Since he's not around to sing songs anymore, we decided we'd give it a shot.

 

Jeff Buckley

 

When women take their education and their abilities seriously and put them to use, ultimately they have to compete with men. It is better for a woman to compete impersonally in society, as men do, than to compete for dominance in her own home with her husband, compete with her neighbors for empty status, and so smother her son that he cannot compete at all.

 

Betty Friedan