My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That's how I see my voice.

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.

This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.

Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.

It's time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.

My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.

Desegregation is a joke.