When Billie Holiday sings a song, I hear the song, but I always hear her and her truth.
— Tom Wopat
The country experience was more of a departure. When you consider my education and my upbringing, you can see that was more of country rock outgrowth of my popular music aspirations.
I did I Love My Wife on Broadway in 1978, and then went into television land. Now things are starting to come together in the way I thought they might when I was a kid.
When you're doing the traditional musicals, singing songs that are 40 and 50 years old, you realize there's a reason why those musicals are hits. These are amazing songs!
I sang opera, I sang show tunes. I got into a rock band for a while. I've sung a lot of different things.
It's amazing to hear, as a voice matures and then starts to decline, what kind of emotion is still conveyed by a really good vocalist.
I think now I'm being taken a little more seriously. That's pure conjecture on my part.
I have no experience performing that music live in front of an audience. So that remains to be seen. I'm very excited to see what that's going to be like.
There's a guy at the record company who's 30, and he says, I would not listen to these songs except in this context. Somehow the recording process, the arrangements, make it more accessible.
I'm facing upstage, with my back to the audience, and the spotlight comes up on my back as I start singing.
I listen to Steely Dan. I really like Steely Dan.
There were a couple of years when I wanted to be a football player, but I really always wanted to be a singer.
With Schubert, a lot of the melodies are very simple, but he's in this groove. He's in touch with his heart.
As I've gone along, I felt like I was discovering an aspect of my voice that I didn't know was there: an ability to interpret a song in a way that makes it more accessible.
I've made it clear to my agents that I want more interesting stuff.
