The truth is, when you want a great show, it's not 'entertaining' the audience - it's you sharing with them... an experience of communion.
— Lizz Wright
What I learned about singing in the church has gone into what I do now.
'Salt' is like this snapshot in midair, an action shot. It's about my relationship with the church, the classical and choral music that I dealt with in school, and my new introduction to jazz. It's very hard for me to listen to from beginning to end, because I hear how lost I was.
For me, I just want to sing about life. And since I come from a spiritual background, I turned to jazz, because I feel it's still sacred, like gospel. It's serious music, but it allows room to sing about so much other stuff as well.
I know how to make myself comfortable.
Where I come from, music is not a business. Sharing music is a business, but music is not a business. It comes from the people and belongs to the people.
I really just want an audience that is willing to let me live my life and share with them what I get out of my life.
I've always loved the woods, and I've always loved gardening and a lot of solitude and quiet.
I love singing all types of genres.
We had no television, and I only heard the radio when my parents went out to a Bible study group. They liked a quiet, meditative house.
I let the song guide me. I move through the space that I'm given rather than trying to make an impression on the material. I'm curious to learn from the music.
I am more prolific when I have something to respond to. I get my juice from people and real stories and things that seem common but are amazing.
As a southern woman, we often define ourselves by who we are with. But I wanted my life to be built differently.
Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience.
It's hard to know who you are until you're cracked open a little bit.
I studied opera for a year at Georgia State University, but I wasn't interested in that meticulous, technical approach to music. So I left school and went back to jazz.
'Moffou' is one of my favorite records.
I always want to do good work and enjoy doing it.
I'm in love with the way that Ella Fitzgerald delivered a lyric. She would deliver a lyric with the kind of clarity that would make you wonder why it was written, and make you think about the writer. I think every writer hopes an Ella of any genre or anytime gets a hold of their work and works the song like that.
I don't think words always lead to meaning, but the things you can create with them are still pretty amazing. I've been really into Joni Mitchell, for example, but I've also been into some studio stuff, like Bjork.
It's very hard for me to place myself alongside another artist. Everyone has something unique to express.
So many great singers we know have come from the church.
I'm kind of a subtle person.
My mom has a couple great tricks, but my father is consistently a good cook. He's extremely avid about health and fitness and a bit obsessive. He always talks about garden-fresh food.
Life is good. It might not go the way we plan it, but that's fine. We just do what we can.
No matter what happens, I can go back to the mountains. I have nature and my wonderful friends and neighbors. I get so much by being there.
I'd been trained in choral, gospel, and a little bit of opera.
I call myself a singer-songwriter influenced by the gospel and jazz tradition. Naturally, because of my lifestyle and love for nature, there's a lot of folk and Americana there because that's just my life.
I love talking to other musicians on tour and finding out what we all have to do, not just as artists but as business people. A lot of us are investing and trying to use social media. It is such an interesting level of responsibility and engagement on all these levels. I don't know how one can do this without absolute commitment and faith.
I've begun to realize, as I'm getting older, that I was taught to go for a certain kind of stillness to get things done. I missed that in my life. I loved my grandmother's property, out in South Georgia right above the Florida line, so I just thought I'd find some property where I could feel that again.
The church is an institution of music and of production and performance, and it has to do with taking people to places inside of themselves and giving them an opportunity to sit deep in their own feelings, and to be together and deeply alone at the same time, and to process things.
I have no ancestral link to the mountains. But I really do feel close to mountain culture. Their ways of food, of thinking. The way they hang out with no recording devices and just sing songs with each other.
Everyone I perform and tour with looks out for each other; we ensure we stay healthy.
Salif Keita's one of my favorite artists.
As I grow older, I hope I can fully embody my grandmother's remarkable peace.
At 16, I was going to church and playing music for church, and Dad would only pay for piano lessons so I could play at church.
My father was very strict, a very militant parent, because he wanted us to be very focused kids. He sold the televisions, so we didn't watch TV. And he didn't want any music playing that wasn't gospel or inspirational music. In fact, he didn't even like a lot of gospel because he thought it was too bluesy.
I didn't wait around for my parents' opinion about my venture out into contemporary music.
Singing in church is a very different approach to music. It's very much about transcending the idea of self. It's about finding something greater that connects all of us. Gospel music is about tapping into that.
There's a lot of pressure that comes from the mainstream stuff, and already people who have been saying - people who don't know any better - have been saying things to me like, 'You should really think about neosoul. You'd definitely be more successful in that.' But that's not my expression.
I'd listen to the radio, especially when my parents were out on house calls to pray for people - you know, shut-ins. Sometimes, if we were incredibly sneaky, we could do it at night when everyone was asleep.
I want to record, tour, and just live life.
I've always been genuinely interested in the spirit world. I've seen things I will never talk about because I'd be a fool to. You can't lay out that world in words.
I love songs that create moments that are very personal and that tell a story.
I think, as singers and performers, we are ambassadors of the human experience. I don't want to get bored just talking about myself.
Making a record and being a touring artist is about cooperation between spirit, craft, emotion, and focus.
I live just above a creek, and it's always very active. It almost sounds like the ocean. It's constant, and there's lots of big rocks in it, so it's got a great sound. It's one of my favorite things.
Surrender is working with what happens.
The whole musical institution of the church involves a lot of different styles of communication at the same time. Things like call and response. Sometimes they use the music to pray and work things out. And there's so much repetition in gospel, it's like churning butter.
Music is primal: when it's done without pretension, you can really feel the shape of someone's soul.
