Rita Coolidge – HuffPost 11.13.12

Mike Ragogna: Rita, I have to ask you my traditional question, what is your advice for new artists?

Rita Coolidge: You know, it’s probably the same that it always has been but even more so now. The competition is so very competitive that I think if I could have done anything else…and I tried. I went to Florida State and graduated with a degree in art and minors in English and art history, and I planned on teaching music in school or teaching art, being involved in a teaching program because my mother was a school teacher, but because I had been singing since I was two years old and listened to Peggy Lee from the time I was three or four as much as anybody would let me sit and play a record over and over, I tried to do something else and I couldn’t. Music was the only thing that really was my passion. I couldn’t do anything else. I always tell young artists, “If you think that you can spend your life focusing on something else to make money, that would probably be a good idea,” because chances of making it in the music business are so very small. But if you do make it, just remember who you are and where you came from.