I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.

Music is so powerful, it needs to be used for some kind of redeeming work. To lift peoples spirits, to lift their souls.

It's not that I don't love the song. My songs are like my children: some you want around and some you want to send off to college as soon as possible.

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

I don't want anything to get in the way of me and my singing. I want my mind as clear as possible.

I’m not a scholar or a psychologist, so I don’t really think about why. But I do think about what it means to sing to and with people, to offer music to them, and to ask them to spend time with me.

In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry you make it double. Don't worry. Be happy.