The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done.

It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.

Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate

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.

Hit the road Jack, don'tcha come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road Jack, don'tcha come back no more.

I was born with music inside me

Goodbye don't mean gone.