By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.
It's quite interesting that in my growing up I had several influences. We had gospel music on campus. R&B music was, of course, the community, and radio was country music. So I can kind of see where all the influences came from.
I love what Alabama Shakes is doing - it's kind of like what grunge did to rock 'n' roll, they're doing to R&B.
We weren't allowed to have secular music in the house growing up. I was home-schooled, and gospel was the only choice we had.
I've grown up on gospel and blues music, and now it's a huge part of who I am.
My version of 'Georgia' became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.
I came up in gospel.
I was raised in South Alabama in the woods, y'know? I'm country.
I had been raised on country and western in Missouri. But gospel was great.
I was raised on gospel. I remember hip-hop and rock music were secular, so basically, for my first ten years living in Detroit, I was on gospel. But when I moved to Houston, that's when I got to open up my musical horizons.