New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size.

I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing.

I don't think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

When you sing, always tell the truth.