Many times I’ve gone on tours with Paul Anka. He would have someone sitting behind him to keep people from even talking to him. You were almost in a little restricted area there.
BEN E. KINGIf you just concentrate on what you’re doing and allow yourself to actually enjoy and let your feelings come out, whatever the tempos, whatever the rhythms, whatever the songs, 9 out of 10 times it will work.
More Ben E. King Quotes
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Of course, the kids who had never heard of a person called Ben E. King were then aware of the name associated with the song. That gave a tremendous lift to me as an artist.
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And, because there was an honesty about all that was going on. It connected with the people in the street.
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I’m a songwriter. So I’m OK. But when I wrote “Stand By Me” as a song and to know that the song will probably be here for hundred and hundreds of years to come, it’s great, you know. And it was just simple lyrics.
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I still think my whole career was accidental. I didn’t pursue it. I feel like I’m cheating sometimes.
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Yeah. I’m amateurish. I can play enough to write a song, or strum on a little guitar to write out a song. But, I don’t play well at all. I wouldn’t even attempt for a second to play in public.
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You take a chance to do something and you realize in your heart it’s either going to be the greatest thing that ever happened or the worst thing that ever happened. It won’t be an in between, I almost made a hit. It will be an instant flop or an instant success.
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I don’t care what studio I’m in, I don’t care what producers is producing it and I don’t care what song it is because they taught me those things I feel so protected wherever I go as far as music.
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It’s a different thing when you go into a studio and you record with the intent of going somewhere and you’re marketing yourself for that direction.
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I do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.
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You’re writing it is how you feel. And when you’re finished you put your signature on it and you mail it off and that’s it. And that’s how “Stand By Me” was really.
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Yeah. I’ve been pretty fortunate to travel I guess, all around the place.
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I enjoyed singing, I loved song writing, I loved recording. All those things that involves with creating music was great.
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When I got involved with The Five Crowns who later became The Drifters, and we got this hit record, I still was looking at this as kind of a fun thing.
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It’s something that, songwriters just write songs. It’s like an artist that paints. They paint what they feel. It’s not, it’s not about how many of these painting I’ll sell it’s just how they feel at the moment. And that’s how I wrote “Stand By Me”.
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In New York, I was excited about the music in New York because the only music that I was more or less involved with in the South was either country and western or hillbilly music as we used to call it when I was a kid and, ah, gospel.
BEN E. KING