My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.

If you can play the blues, you can do anything.

I really feel that if you're gonna be good, you gotta practice... Practice whatever the hell you do.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

Drunken talk isn’t meant to be printed in the paper.

When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.