SUNDAY THOUGHTS: CREATIVITY

Richard: There's no...(shaking his head) 

See, you have to understand, when I came up, nobody sounded alike. Mahalia, or somebody like that? You just knew the minute they said, "Uh”, you knew who it was....A lot of these people—you don't know who they are; you don't care who they are...I don't know...There's no creativity...Be different. Be unique. 

Richard (mimicking a singer’s run): "Sa—aa—aaa—aaaa—aaay"...No. no. We're not even going to start with dissecting that. 

Me: What do you think will help?

Richard: Help who?

Me: Help get the creativity back? 

Richard: You can't just come alive with creativity if you have none, cause it'll fall dead on its face—like that run just there. That one sad little run...Don't get me started.

When I was growing up, if you really knew about gospel music, I could tell... You could just say four or five words, and I knew the artist immediately, from their diction to…to everything. 

I mean, I was like six or seven years-old doing that.  

So...I think one thing is--- we don't listen. We need somebody to say, "Shut up. Listen to THIS"...You know? Unless you're "inbredded" in that, you can't just get up and start singing it. No...No ma'am. No sir. That doesn't work...you can’t just start hollering whatever you hear. I don't have the patience. And if you look at me like I'm crazy? Like I don't know what I'm taking about, or singing about? Then that's really not good.”