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Task 2. Jazz Singer.
Now you are the first lady of jazz, probably the greatest blues singer the world has ever known.
Just what is it that makes you sing as you do?
I don't know. One night it's a little bit slower, the next night it's a little bit lighter.
It's all according to how I feel. I never feel the same way twice.
The blues is a mixed up sort of thing. There's two kinds of blues, there's happy blues and there's sad blues.
I don't think I ever sing the same way twice.
And how did you become a jazz singer in the first place?
Well, it was all by accident really.
You see, I wanted to be a dancer so I went along to try out,
you know, to an audition and I was just a kid, I don't know how to dance at all.
So I kept doing the two steps I did know over and over until they told me get off the stage.
But I guess the pianist felt sort of sorry me because he called me back and asked me if I could sing.
Huh, course I can sing, man, I told him, I have been singing all my life.
What the hell use is that? And then he asked me to sing a blues song, St Louis Blues I think it was,
and I just kept on singing and he just kept on playing, and in the end I had a job.
That was on West 42nd Street. Now that was the street for jazz in those days.
And slowly I became known, people started coming to see me rather than just to listen to the orchestra, and that's how it started.
I mean, it began like that and it's just been going on ever since.
You've never looked back and you've been successful ever since?
Well, it wasn't quite as easy as it sounds. I mean, when I stared out I didn't know anything.
I mean like chords and sharps and flats.
I just sang. But if you're going to sing jazz, you have to know these things.
And people were very nice and kind to me and they slowly taught me what key I had to sing each song in.
And that's how I really became a professional musician.
I mean, the beginning was just luck, but if you want to stay at the top, you really you have to know your job.
You have to know what you're doing and you have to know how to be able to change it to go with the public's taste, with the changing fashions.
Otherwise you find yourself out of work and back on the streets where you started from.
But surely, you never needed to go with the fashions? I mean, you've always been popular.
Well, that's true up to the point. And if you're good enough, you can even change the fashions.
I've never done that, I've always sung what I wanted and if they didn't like it, they didn't have to buy it.
I've never made a fortune from my music because I won't sing just any damn thing.
I choose what I want to sing, but anything I do sing is a part of my life.
So it has to be important to me before I'll sing it. I think this is why people like my music,
they know that whatever I say in my songs I really believe and this means something to them and helps them in their lives.
I'm not a rich pop singer and never wanted to be. And there's been a lot of scandal attach to my life.
Some of it's true, some of it's not. But at least I've always been my true self in my music and I'll always stay that way.
I think a guy called Shakespeare once wrote, unto thing own self to be true and thou canst not then to any man be false.
Well, that's all I feel when I'm singing my songs.
You may like them, you may hate them, but nobody can say that I'm not singing from deep down inside myself.
I won't ever sing anything I don't believe in, and although as I said,
it's never the same any two nights running, it may be happy one night, and sad the next. It's all according to how I feel.
And how I'm feeling the need for a drink of something strong.
I've got four hours on stage tonight and that really takes it out of you, believe me.
Go right ahead and thank you for the interview. That's OK, there's a couple of tickets, come and see the show.
v. 附上，系上，贴上，使依恋
