Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they've ever been is kicked.

But I was singing loud, and most singers weren't singing loud.

Rock 'n' roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters - twelve children.

Like, my mother would have company over, and I would sing so they'd pay attention to me.

I don't think that you have to be effeminate to be sensitive.

I am the innovator. I am the originator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock 'n' roll!

I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.