Performing is an experience, for me, that is as humbling as it is energizing.

No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.

I was always a dreamer, in childhood especially. People thought I was a little strange.

A woman went so far as to hire private detectives to contact me to help bring her out of what she called a hypnotic trance.

Baseball got into my blood early and I worked harder at it than anything.

I've seen people who have been coming to my shows for 25 years.

I'm not James Brown. I'm not Sam Cooke. I'm Charley Pride. I'm just me and that's what you got.