I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I'm the happiest I've ever been.

And as I started reaching deeper I realized that most of the blues of that day was done by men. Women just didn't have the nerve.

I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.

Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't.

That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me that I didn't even know was there until I let it out.

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.