A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.

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

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.

Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.

A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

When Malcolm X was assassinated I was working at the Apollo. They brought his body to the Unity Funeral Home, which was around the corner.

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.