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.
BEN E. KINGIn 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.
More Ben E. King Quotes
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The industry now wants to be in charge of everything.
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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 always felt I never chose music, it chose me.
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Most black singers like to slow the word down and, and go directly to your heart. They’re not interested in your ears, we just want to go directly to your heart.
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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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One of the hardest things in the world is to perform on record and get someone to enjoy and feel what you’re doing. It’s unlike, like TV you can, you can fake it with the face and the crying and the bits. Recording is completely different.
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There was no, there was no in between. And when I got to New York all the other musics that’s in the world just came into my head whether it was the classics, jazz, I never knew what jazz was about all, had heard anything about jazz.
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The Phil Spector that I would meet has always been a nice, quiet, little guy who’s very serious about his work; obviously you can tell that because each and everything he’s ever done has always been charted.
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I still perform it in all my shows. I’ll do it as long as I’m breathing. I’m so proud it has stood the test of time.
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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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It never dawned on me at any particular time of my life that people are paid tremendous money to sing.
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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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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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One minute we can be in a small club, the next minute we can be in a coliseum, and the next minute we can be in a small auditorium. It varies, depending on the promoter, the budget, and the travelling distance.
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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