I ... started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out.

The only prejudice I've found anywhere in TV is in some advertising agencies, and there isn't so much prejudice as just fear.

Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.

I was a guinea pig for some hoodlums who thought they could hurt me and frighten me and keep other Negro entertainers from the South.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you've got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.

I'm a musician at heart. I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.