Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter, a major influence on my own music from the very start.

I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And I was influenced a lot by that.

Most artists try to avoid cliches, but it's pretty hard to avoid them if you yourself end up being one.

The biggest honor of my career was when I won R&B Artist of the Year back in the 1970s. I look at that as a major honor.

The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.

As a singer, I float around. I'm kind of scatty, bouncing around a lot. I try to adapt to what's going on around me in the song and the arrangement.

As I got older, my voice got better.