Billie holiday Quote by Janis Joplin

It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.

— Frank Sinatra

I naturally gravitated first to R&B and pop: Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle.

— Gabby Barrett

I was told all my life to sing like Aretha Franklin, or Adele, cover myself with black clothing and show more soul, sing bigger.

— Netta Barzilai

[Billie Holiday] was keeping it super real, and you can feel that to this day. Everything that she sang, she believed in. So I…

— Jose James

The artist who gave me the most inspiration and direction, especially as a singer - and I absolutely consider myself a singer, 100 percent…

— Rufus Wainwright

If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world?

— Maya Angelou

I really pulled from that repertoire that Billie Holiday was singing, and the way she sang it. It's sort of this beautiful, not really…

— Jose James

I cannot express how much music got me through lockdown. I re-discovered Roberta Flack, Smokey Robinson, and Aretha Franklin.

— Miquita Oliver

I had no desire to become a singer until I heard Billie Holiday. The first time I heard her on a record, it was…

— Susannah McCorkle

I can't sing like Aretha Franklin as much as I wish I could. And I don't sing like Etta James and the Judds as…

— Amanda Shires

The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail... and I'd…

— Bernice Johnson Reagon

My vocal influences are a lot of jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Julie London, they had this tenderness to their voice.

— Borns