When you sing, always tell the truth.

I can only sing songs my way. I don't know any other way.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.

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

And when you're poor, you grow up fast.