I was reared in the church from the age of three. I've played piano since I was three. I performed at revivals and for my people around North Carolina for several years. People around town collected money to send me to school.
I can read and arrange, but I can't write.
I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs... and good ones.
If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.
The pressure of show business is on all the time and show business is a fickle business. Whatever is popular now - that's all that counts. I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions about what I'm doing and why.