It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.
Interpretation
Frank Sinatra expresses admiration for Billie Holiday as his most significant musical influence.
In this quote, Frank Sinatra acknowledges the profound impact that Billie Holiday had on his musical style and career. He emphasizes her importance not just in his past but as a lasting influence, suggesting that her artistry shaped his understanding of music and performance.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the impact of predecessors in any field, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of recognizing influences.
With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.
When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.
There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis' talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly. I shall miss him dearly as a friend. He was a warm, considerate and generous man.
Dare to wear the foolish clown face.
I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.
The bass is the link between harmony and rhythm. It is the foundation of a band. It is what all the other instruments stand upon, but it is rarely recognized as that.
There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.
All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.
The major rock instruments and classical instruments were designed for performance, for sharing the music with an audience, and then later people put microphones on them and recorded them. But for electronic music, the opposite was true - they're designed in laboratories, and later, we tried to put them on stage.
I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs.
When it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn't us or Nirvana, but Mudhoney. Nirvana delivered it to the world, but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.
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