I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn't think of it as being tough and things like that.

I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn't think of it as being tough and things like that.

My view is that you cannot close your mind and say I don't want to listen to this or that. Because if you can't appreciate the bad for being bad, you can't appreciate the good. If you turn a deaf ear to everything but one style, pretty soon it's not going to work out.

... Geniuses have a little extra something. There's that little something that you know is a little different.

Bud Johnson, God rest his soul of fame, a tenor saxophonist. Bud was always a big, big, big booster of mine and he always when I first met Bud in Pittsburgh when he came through there, he heard me sing and he wanted me to come to Chicago.

My youngest daughter sings. She's going to be very good. She's graduated from Music School and she's been working down around and getting her feet wet, you know. I had her out with me for a year just showing her the ropes a little bit, but she's going to be all right.

I don't have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch. I'm glad I don't have perfect pitch because perfect pitch can drive you crazy.