I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.

It's not fair that our name can be used in any newspaper, any article connected with anything, and we can't really fight about it. It's like any newspaper that might take a picture of you, bad or good, and sometimes they're awful pictures, and they can use them without your approval and you can't do anything about it.

I have never gotten into the label thing.

I learned something from that. If someone asks me something that I really don't want to do, I say no. I have to trust that. And I'm not afraid to talk money.

I don't have to sit around and wait for the next movie to come along, I can go out and sing.

People can take your name and write a book about you and they make money off of it. How is the public supposed to know you're not authorizing that book? As soon as you make a big stink about it it only makes the book sell more.

I always wanted to be a fashion designer and I learned costume illustration in high school. That was an incredible high school. It was more like a college. I'm moving more in that direction, just kind of merchandising my name.