Timing is everything. It is not so much about who you know, especially now with the Internet, because anybody can become a superstar overnight.

I'm a lot more sensitive about music, I think, than most other guys in this particular side of the business. Most of them are beat crazy and beat heavy. I'm more melody. I'm more musical than most of the other ones.

I refused to be disrespected. So, at 16, of course, I was a gentleman about it, but I told them and it cost me my job.

Timing is everything. It is not so much about who you know, especially now with the Internet, because anybody can become a superstar overnight.

I used to tell myself when I was much younger that I didn't want to wake up one day and be 32 years old and still playing records. It's just not going to happen. Well, the joke is on me, because I'm 56 years old now.

There are two people that probably influenced me more than anybody out of all the artists out here: that's Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson.

I think women's ears are a lot more sensitive. Men are going to follow whatever appeals to women.