I've been told that my voice is very distinctive. I've been told people feel extremely connected to it.
I never really think too much about my voice.
I'm a piano player. I never thought of myself as a singer, at all. I was always trying to sound like somebody else. I don't like my own voice, I like Ray Charles, Robert Plant, I like Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, people that have an edge in their voice.
When I first started, I wrote some songs with Linda Perry. She's so instrumental in a lot of artist's lives, listening to you and then helping you write songs that are you, that bring the most of what you are out, whereas a lot of producers might put their stamp on you. I gained confidence because I'm less of a straight-up, traditional vocalist.
It's one thing if you write a song and somebody else sings it because you give the OK. But if your voice is on something and you don't get the credit, it's kind of hard.
Having spent time on the Broadway stage definitely helps one's confidence in terms of feeling just validated in that world. Most people only know my voice as a country artist.
I don't know if I should say this, but I feel more like a singer than an artist.
I've experimented with so many different sounds, it's difficult to say what the Donovan sound really is, but it's essentially my voice and guitars.
It's an interesting and demanding art to do voices. I have been told so many times that I have a distinctive voice, but of course, I don't hear my own voice as others do, so I don't know.
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.
When you're a kid and you're trying to find your own voice, it's rather daunting to hear somebody like Howlin' Wolf, because you know that you'll never achieve that.
Even talking, I'm super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There's no way I can fight it.
I missed being onstage behind the microphone. After a while, it was hard to hear another voice singing my lyrics.
I never noticed my voice. I did become aware as a little kid at camp that I liked doing accents. We'd do plays and skits, and I realized I loved speaking in voices that weren't my own.
I always wanted to sound like a man, like Jeff Buckley or Tom Waits.
My mentor made me say a poem over and over. 'Stop! That's not your voice. Start again.' I was sobbing by the end, but it drilled into my head that my voice is important.
I think I'm most well-known for 'Yeah.' The word 'Yeah' and my voice.
I sing in five or six different voices that are all part of me. It's not contrived.
My voice is who I am, who I was when I was 3, and who I am going to be when I am 90 years old. When I hit the stage and people do not know who I am, they automatically assume, before I open my mouth, I am going to sing a Bob Marley song!
It annoys me how pretty my voice is...that sounds incredibly immodest, but it annoys me how polite it can sound when perhaps what I'm singing is deeply acidic.
I didn't think I had a voice at all, and I still think of myself as an interpreter of songs more than a singer. I thought it was too deep; people thought I was a man. I had a very strong Jamaican accent, too; the accent really messed me up for auditions.
I think I have got a peculiar voice really, it neither one thing nor the other. It's not a contralto and it's not a mezzo soprano; it's a nothing voice really.
I don't think Tom Hardy has an actual voice of his own. Except maybe the one in 'The Dark Knight Rises,' as Bane.
My voice gets recognized before anything else. It's always gotten attention. In choruses at church and school, I started as a tenor, moved to a baritone and finally became a bass. I knew then that my voice would be my instrument. Now if I want to hide, I just keep my mouth shut.
When I hear someone, instantaneously, I'm like, 'Who's singing?' You're giving people so much of yourself, and my voice is the most natural, distinctive tool I have. It's up to me to express myself on a wider scale than just writing vocal melodies and lyrics.
