Creativity Quote by Mel Torme

Torme is pushing back against the old-school showbiz myth that a performer should stay varnished, distant, and mysterious. The apology up front ("So I'm sorry") isn’t meekness; it’s a polite shove. He knows there’s a faction - managers, critics, even fellow musicians - who treat small talk, interviews, and audience rapport as contamination, as if personality dilutes craft. Torme’s move is to reframe access as an artistic tool, not a publicity side quest.

The key phrase is "continue to talk to the people". He’s not talking about marketing; he’s talking about contact. In the mid-century entertainment machine, singers were often packaged as voices first and people second, especially in an era of tightly controlled TV spots and club circuits where the set was the product. Torme insists the human being is part of the performance’s meaning-making apparatus: if the audience understands your temperament, your humor, your vulnerability, they don’t just like you more - they hear you differently.

The subtext is defensive and savvy. He’s implicitly arguing that evaluation isn’t purely technical. A perfect phrase can still feel cold if the singer reads as inaccessible; a slightly imperfect moment can land as intimate if the audience trusts the person delivering it. "More appreciate" is doing strategic work: he isn’t claiming they’ll excuse mediocrity, he’s claiming they’ll recognize the full shape of the artistry when the artist is allowed to be legible. It’s a statement about control - choosing transparency on his own terms, and turning celebrity’s demand for “authenticity” into an extension of musicianship.