If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.

I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.

If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don't have their assistants and entourage, it's funny to see what happens.

I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.

Nobody's going to sell 10 million records by not working hard.

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.

What I do isn't black music, it's just my music.