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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. 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.

-Ben E. King

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In New York, I

Ben E. King

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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. 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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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. 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.

I Enjoyed Singing, I Loved Song Writing, I Loved Recording. All Those Things That Involves With Creating Music Was Great.

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.

If 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.

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.

It Never Dawned On Me At Any Particular Time Of My Life That People Are Paid Tremendous Money To Sing.

Time Of My Life

And, Because There Was An Honesty About All That Was Going On. It Connected With The People In The Street.

I Would Imagine After The First Recording Session With Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller And Atlantic Records I Began To Realize That This Is Going To Be Like This For The Rest Of My Life And I Knew That What, What They Were Doing Was Going To Be Successful Because With Each Session That We Would Do, It Would Get Better And Better And Better, The Songs Would Become Better, The, Ah, The Feeling Of Success Was There And We Were All In The Middle Of That As Well.

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.

I Always Felt I Never Chose Music, It Chose Me.

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.

During Those Times Like In My Early Years As A Writer I Could Actually Write A Song In Ten Minutes Because All Of A Sudden A Song Is Writing Itself, I'm Just Putting Down Words. It Just Seem Each Line That You Put Down Flows With The Other Ones. It's Like Writing A Love Letter You Don't Think About It, It's Something From The Heart.

I Do A Lot Of Vegas Work And Work With The Comedians.

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.

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.

I Do Like What Alicia Keys And John Legend Are Doing. With Their Music, You Keep Your Clothes On.

It Doesn't Take Me Long To Write Songs.

The Industry Now Wants To Be In Charge Of Everything.

If There's Anything About The Business That I Love And That I'm Extremely Happy About, Is That My Career Started At That Time And That I Met Some Of The Greatest Entertainers At That Time And Some Are Still Here.

Extremely Happy

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Never Even Visualized For A Second Doing What I'm Doing.

I Think That The Song, The Song "stand By Me" Is One Of Those Songs That... And Someone Asked Me, What Was You Thinking About Or What Was You Feeling About? 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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah. I've Been Pretty Fortunate To Travel I Guess, All Around The Place.

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.

People Abroad Always Tend To Take What The Best Of What We Have And Come Back Through The Back Door Always, Say, And Hit Us With It. And Then We Wake Up One Day And Say, I Think I've Heard That. Yeah, It Was Done By Whoever, You Know. So, Ah, That's Been One Of Our Weaknesses We Don't Tend To Hold On As They Do There.

I Still Think My Whole Career Was Accidental. I Didn't Pursue It. I Feel Like I'm Cheating Sometimes.

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