I choose things by how they resonate in my heart.
Rita Coolidge

I don't think I was considered to be a cabaret singer because I didn't have patter that was written.
Rita Coolidge

I recorded my first jazz record in the '70s.
Rita Coolidge

I say what's in my heart, and I do it in my concerts.
Rita Coolidge

I think the challenges for me was to go into the studio with these incredible jazz players and come up to their level of excellence. That's always a challenge.
Rita Coolidge

I think you have to have a jazz pedigree to be on jazz radio.
Rita Coolidge

I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.
Rita Coolidge

I was kind of known as a ballad singer. People would send ballads. Some of them would go over my shoulder and float off the top of my head, and I just didn't feel anything. Then I would hear a song that would absolutely shake me.
Rita Coolidge

I'm not stopping. My dream has come true, and I'm staying.
Rita Coolidge

I've always loved jazz.
Rita Coolidge


I've always wanted to record a jazz record. I did one in the '70s with Barbara Carroll. It's been a journey.
Rita Coolidge

I've got my whole life. There's a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of experiencing the road and the music and different players. It makes me a richer human being. I have a greater source of information to tap into, a wealth of life.
Rita Coolidge

If I'm driving to L.A. and have anxiety about making the drive, if I've got Peggy with me, we're cool.
Rita Coolidge

It seems that jazz is more cerebral and more mathematical in a sense.
Rita Coolidge

Jazz radio is not very friendly to pop singers who decide to make a jazz record. But a lot of people have been. A lot of the people I've talked to like the record.
Rita Coolidge

My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.
Rita Coolidge

Possibly, I should have been a jazz singer from the beginning.
Rita Coolidge

The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.
Rita Coolidge

There was a subtlety about Peggy Lee. It was powerful. There was a valuable use of space. Everything was not cluttered. Her voice was out front and was the key instrument.
Rita Coolidge

Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.
Rita Coolidge