At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.

When I'm singing the blues, I'm singing life.

The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage.

Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together.I would hear him sing every night.

I’ve learned to live with rage. In some ways, it’s my rage that keeps me going. Without it, I would have been whipped long ago. With it, I got a lot more songs to sing.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared about.

I was a sloppy kid, wanted to be just wild.