Portraits in Blue - Krissi

The blues is beyond your control. When you want to sing them, you can't sing them; and when you don't want to sing them, you still have to sing them--or hum, or do something. And at the time that you want to sing and don't feel bad, you still want to sing...and you get to feelin' that everything is going so strong that the blues comes alive and just lives through you.

Wait a minute. Just wait a minute! Let me tell you what I'm trying to say here. I don't mess around when I sing. I just don't mess around. My style, you know, my voice, is I'm scraping my face on the cement, need everything right now, kind of voice. When I sing I go to that place right above my hair. And I guarantee I will make you cry. I never care much about the words. It's about how my voice moves, the range...It's about the abuse my throat can take night after night. Krissi MacGregor is a singing machine. I mean, one of my first gigs was with Leon Russell. He used to take me to the revival tents in the south, so that I could learn the right way. I've been around. I have a right to complain. I have to complain. I have to make it difficult.

What I feel is almost too much for me. Kind of like I'm missing a layer of skin. If I feel more intensely, I sing more intensely. So see, I have to complain. I have to make it difficult. It helps the pain, the blues. People should respect me for that, for surviving my unique pain. You can't object to all that . Being able to sing what breaks your heart No complainin' about that.