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.

It's hard to have a friend when your name's a household word.

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.

But men are so full of greed today, they'll sell anything for a little piece of money.

Black people lived right by the railroad tracks and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.

It's not the size of the ship; it's the size of the waves.