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.

If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.

By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage. My mother is an Evangelist and I used to play the piano at her revival meetings.