I came here with something in me that I inherited from my folks. So I'm going to do something called life and times.

To sing the ballad with a knowingness about what you are talking about. If it's somebody else's lyric, and the message is a little unusual for you, it requires that you learn that new message.

I sang do-wop on the street corner before it was called do-wop.

I was age six or seven, and singing, "Jesus wants me for her son, beep, to shine for him," and people smiled and pinched my cheeks till the blood vessels broke, and I knew I was doing something right.

I think a singer is an athlete. I've always tried to stay fit. Until my knee said, "Uh-uh," I was jogging. Then I started walking. They don't like walking a lot, but I'll push them.

I kind of knew something was going on, and my older brothers and sisters were singing be-boppish kinds of stuff in the living room, and I was listening. I started singing, warmer than a summer night, at seven or eight years old.

You have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the Blues.