James Vincent McMorrow Quotes

I grew up listening to country music with my dad on the way to school.

I was raised in a musical house. Marvin Gaye. Boyz II Men. Jodeci. My mom always played that Toni Braxton song, 'Un-Break My Heart.' When I hear that song, it still puts me right back in the car with her.

When your dad is a country music fan and you take long car trips, you become one too.

My dad listened to a lot of James Taylor when I was growing up. We had a couple of his cassettes in the car, and we'd go on a lot of long family car trips. It was either strange musicals or James Taylor - or Whitney Houston. It was quite the combination there.

I was five years old, onstage singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' - a rock version - and I was always wanting to entertain. But the biggest thing for me is just country music has helped me get through the worst times of my life and the best times of my life. I want to give that back to people.

Whenever I'd go anywhere with my dad - in his 1980 burgundy Dodge Ram - he'd always listen to mix tapes of country-music stars like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Willie Nelson. Those were the first songs I ever learned the words to.

Me and my dad, we're both quite nostalgic people.

Even when I was 3 or 4 years old, I'd go out riding in the car with mom and dad, and I already knew all the songs off mom's Hank Williams and George Jones records by heart. I remember just sitting in the back seat and singing them at the top of my lungs.

I was about 10 when I first began to sing. My mother had been away for three weeks, and I learned 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina.' When she came back, I sang it in front of her, my auntie Linda, my father, my uncle Jim, and my grandmother.

I used to sing Chaka Khan tunes in the car with my mum when I was eight years old.

My da used to sing 'Take Her Up to Monto' to me when we were walking down the street - he still does, actually - because it's got a walking tempo, and I still sing it to myself when I'm walking along.

I like wearing my dad's sweaters because I knew that he wore them when he held me when I was a baby.

Anyone who doesn't miss the past never had a mother.

My mom took me to a Dolly Parton concert when I was 3.

I have that memory of dancing on my father's feet to all the music my parents used to listen to.

Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.

If I look back, my mother was always out. I can remember the perfume and her scarlet chiffon dress and crystal beads, going to a party. She used to play her violin at restaurants later on in life and at old people's homes. She loved the races, which she used to take me to as a child: our carpets were bought with her winnings. Loved her chickens.

I always loved the way music made me feel. I did sports at school and all, but when I got home, it was just music. Everybody in my neighborhood loved music. I could jump the back fence and be in the park where there were ghetto blasters everywhere.

'A Christmas Story' has always meant a lot to me personally.

I'm an old-school, embarrassing Joni Mitchell fan. Her music made a hook in my soul and hasn't let go for all these years. I even sing her songs as lullabies to my kids.

I grew up listening to Frank Sinatra, riding in the car with my grandpa, and I was just intrigued by it.

When you're walking down the street or in the car just listening to the radio, and you're, like, 'Oh, that's my song.' You want to say, 'Hey Mom!' That never changes.

I believed in fictional characters as if they were a part of real life. Poetry was important, too. My parents had memorized poems from their days attending school in New York City and loved reciting them. We all enjoyed listening to these poems and to music as well.

I don't listen to a lot of music any more and even the people I've loved for years - the Nick Drakes of this world - I can't go back to them and listen to them over and over.

And when I've been away from my family and friends, I have felt good hearing some of those old songs.