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.
BEN E. KINGIt’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.
More Ben E. King Quotes
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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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I never even visualized for a second doing what I’m doing.
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When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we see. No, I won’t be afraid, no, I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand, stand by me.
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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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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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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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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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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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A singer has got a different attitude, they’re they’re so whacked out they don’t know what they’re doing half the time. Singers, they don’t, they’re spoiled too.
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I do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.
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If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall. Or the mountain should crumble to the sea. I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear, just as long as you 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.
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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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Those things don’t happen today. I feel sorry for the kids in the industry today. They have on sunglasses, eat caviar in jet planes, but they’ll never know the true feeling that we did.
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I still think my whole career was accidental. I didn’t pursue it. I feel like I’m cheating sometimes.
BEN E. KING