Jazz is like a great blues band that fell down the stairs

It's a bit shocking when you show up in Africa or you're in the middle of Spain and there are people that know the words and the young kids singing along.

As I've gotten older and the world has gotten far more complicated .

I write a lot and I will have some originals on the record. I think it is a mistake for an artist like me to think I am a better writer than Cole Porter. I think it is important to realize what my strengths are. I do like to write and I'm not shabby but I don't think I'm the most brilliant writer. I think it would be a shame and sort so egotistical to say I don't need these wonderful writers. These men created works of art and wrote hundreds of beautiful songs. It would be a mistake for me to say at this point in my career that I am so good.

I can't sit and compare my trouble to Brian Wilson but I came from a blue-collar family of fishermen. Music was an escape and a way for me to dream of better things and a better place to be. Let's just say I was an insecure, scared kid.

I was so lucky. I had a dad and a mom that loved me and my sisters so much. My Uncle Mike and Uncle Frank were married. They must be together for fortysomething years now. Long story short, there was never any stigma attached to that. At the youngest age, I remember my dad saying, "Sometimes men love men and women love women. It's nature.

I just don't want people to think I'm too sweet of a boy; and little miss angel boy, because I'm going to get caught doing somebody horrible.