Which are your favorite Gregory Porter quotes?
Gregory Porter is an American singer, songwriter, and actor.
He is best known for his albums ‘Liquid Spirit’ and ‘Take Me to the Alley,’ which both won him Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
Porter initially began his singing career with the ‘Motéma’ label in 2010, and his debut album ‘Water’ was successfully nominated in the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Porter has achieved the kind of fame that many aspiring artists can only dream about.
Porter was described by The New York Times as a “jazz singer of thrilling presence and a booming baritone with a gift for earthy refinement.”
Here’s a collection of the most motivational Gregory Porter quotes:
50 Highly Motivational Gregory Porter Quotes
1. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” – Gregory Porter
2. “I’m always lobbying for the irrepressible strength of love.” – Gregory Porter
3. “Writing from a personal experience can bring about this emotion and power of emotion that can be instantly connected to the instrument, my voice.” – Gregory Porter
4. “I think part of my job as a songwriter is to go back in my memory and pull up those pains for other people because somebody else is going to come along who didn’t have a good issue with their father.” – Gregory Porter
5. “Waving to the Queen after singing Amazing Grace at Buckingham Palace, that was pretty cool.” – Gregory Porter
6. “When there’s an imbalance in terms of what people get to hear, then that’s negative. Then blues, jazz, it will die.” – Gregory Porter
7. “My part of Brooklyn has always been a very warm neighborhood, even before I had anything going on in the music industry. When I step out of my house to go for coffee on Saturday mornings, I might say hi to 20 people before I get to the cafe. I think they feel they own me, in a way.” – Gregory Porter
8. “What makes jazz different is that you can’t predict it, it’s all about freedom. Just when you think you know what you’re going to hear there’ll be a left turn, a jazz musician will change it up.” – Gregory Porter
9. “I lose my bags all the time. Sometimes for two months. One of the worst times was when I had come from France and I had packed cheese because I was really crazy about camembert, so I have this really nice suit that stinks of camembert, no matter how many times I dry clean it.” – Gregory Porter
10th of 50 Gregory Porter Quotes
10. “Gospel music was very prevalent in my house. My mother also loved Nat King Cole. That was some of the first music that I heard. Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole and the Mississippi Mass Choir.” – Gregory Porter
11. “But sometimes that title ‘jazz’ can vex people who think they know exactly what jazz always is and will be.” – Gregory Porter
12. “I’m happiest in nature, in trees, rivers, streams, and I’m happiest around my kid – you know that’s the funny thing, he is not always in the best of moods, but I am always happiest around him and in nature. Around my family is where I am happiest.” – Gregory Porter
13. “I consider myself a jazz singer. I think I stick to the roots of improvisation, singing in front of the beat, behind the beat, playing with notes and harmonies.” – Gregory Porter
14. “You’d think we’d be exhausted by that rhetoric but you’re still able to move people with fear and fright and lies that somebody’s going to take your place, that in order for someone to rise, you have to fall.” – Gregory Porter
15. “You know Bakersfield was full of workers from the south, from Texas and Arkansas, and they brought their gospel and blues with them. And that’s the sound I grew with.” – Gregory Porter
16. “I was 5 years old when I first broke into my mother’s records and played Nat King Cole, and sat alongside the stereo and listened to Nat’s music.” – Gregory Porter
17. “I can sing the blues and I have sung the blues. I feel it internally when I’m singing.” – Gregory Porter
18. “My mother was a minister, so I grew up in a church. My grandfather was a minister; there are a bunch of ministers in my family.” – Gregory Porter
19. “The best career advice was to sing with an understanding and internalize the music – that was my mother’s advice. Sing with intention, believe what it is you’re saying, and think about it before you sing it.” – Gregory Porter
20th of 50 Gregory Porter Quotes
20. “If I can hear the music then no, I don’t hit a wrong note. But if I can’t hear the music because the audience is screaming or the sound system is bad, then I’m subject to stray.” – Gregory Porter
21. “I think sometimes you can be around somebody and take in certain energy and read certain things and you don’t know why your neck is stiff. But if you can recognize the negativity, once you identify it and you know what you are dealing with you can make a point to counteract it with a different energy.” – Gregory Porter
22. “Take Me to the Alley’ is about trying to uplift the lives of people who have been afflicted, maybe the homeless or somebody with an illness, or maybe they’re refugees.” – Gregory Porter
23. “I’m very thankful to San Diego for the musical opportunities it gave me.” – Gregory Porter
24. “My grandmother and my mother and my grandfather, their style of praying was – all day long, they would pray by singing and humming.” – Gregory Porter
25. “The funny thing about nationalism is that there are two sides to it. Some parts of it are beautiful, but there’s an ugly side as well.” – Gregory Porter
26. “I think myself, Jose James, and Robert Glasper are expanding the language – really reminding people that the umbrella of jazz is large and all-encompassing.” – Gregory Porter
27. “Whether you like punk, grunge, or early rock and roll, there’s probably something in there you’ve been living with your whole life and you didn’t even know it was jazz.” – Gregory Porter
28. “And I’ve made it a choice on my records that sometimes I leave the breath or the trailing note that sometimes falls into a flat or a sharp.” – Gregory Porter
29. “I’m really just a singer that’s trying to make some music that strikes to the heart.” – Gregory Porter
30th of 50 Gregory Porter Quotes
30. “The voice is probably supposed to have some cracks and pops and some mistakes in it.” – Gregory Porter
31. “On stage, it’s very naked. There’s a reason you shake your knees. You’re very vulnerable, cos it’s just you, your body is the instrument. But I always had confidence in my voice, if I had the right song, the right words to sing.” – Gregory Porter
32. “It’s been some surreal moments, you know from performing at Buckingham Palace to having dinner with Stevie Wonder, it’s been an amazing ride.” – Gregory Porter
33. “My overwhelming memory of my childhood is the constant busyness in the house. I am seventh out of eight kids – five boys and three girls – plus my mom, Ruth.” – Gregory Porter
34. “Even if you’ve being playing together for years, there’ll always be something new. You’re constantly back phrasing, front phrasing, singing faster, singing slower.” – Gregory Porter
35. “A Change Is Gonna Come’ has always been a powerful song for me as it comes from a place of vulnerability.” – Gregory Porter
36. “The protest songs of the 1960s and 70s managed to blend political and societal views with music from the heart.” – Gregory Porter
37. “I’m very grateful for the success of ‘Take Me to the Alley.’ The chart position it’s reached around the world is very exciting, and its success is an example of the acceptance of my music. I am very thankful.” – Gregory Porter
38. “One critic called me nothing but a blues singer, as though that was a slight. That is the highest compliment there is.” – Gregory Porter
39. “The nice thing about living in a semi-small town is that I can just go home and switch off. I go home now and I trim roses, rake leaves, wake up early in the morning and scare the raccoons off the lawn! It’s kinda nice, that’s the way I turn off, in Bakersfield, California.” – Gregory Porter
40th of 50 Gregory Porter Quotes
40. “San Diego is where I really started to get my legs, musically.” – Gregory Porter
41. “There’s a lot of female singers and I don’t want to dismiss them, but the male – and I have to be careful – the black male voice in jazz, whatever you say, is an important voice because there’s a tradition of the music that should be touched on, there’s a sound that should be touched on.” – Gregory Porter
42. “I was in rehab for nine months, and I needed some solace and distraction. I was in town one day and I sort of stumbled into a jazz jam session and kept going back.” – Gregory Porter
43. “Music that speaks of politics is less listened to than the music of partying, but it’s still there.” – Gregory Porter
44. “My mother gave me the courage to pursue music as a career on her deathbed. She became very ill when I was 21. I didn’t want her to worry about my future. I wanted her to know I’d finish my degree. But she pushed me to follow my dream, even if it wasn’t the safe option.” – Gregory Porter
45. “What a Wonderful World’ is a love song to nobody and everybody. I’m thinking about songs like that in my writing with Take Me to the Alley.” – Gregory Porter
46. “I was quite shy as a child. My sisters were the gang leaders, my brothers were the enforcers and I was a tag-a-long.” – Gregory Porter
47. “Nat King Cole’s lyrics were speaking to me, almost like fatherly advice, when I was listening to him alongside the console stereo player. So that music and that influence comes out of me.” – Gregory Porter
48. “There were some things in my childhood I thought we’d put to sleep. The idea of one race’s supremacy over another. I thought the issue of color would be put to sleep by the time I had a son. And that’s maybe why I had a kid so late.” – Gregory Porter
49. “Sometimes I’ll be in circles, and I’ll say I’m a jazz singer, and they have no idea what that means.” – Gregory Porter
50. “My sisters started to cook at nine and, being one of the youngest, I wanted in on it, too, so I began at six on potato-peeling duty as french fries were my thing.” – Gregory Porter
Summary
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