I put out a recording of me singing mostly jazz because I wanted people to know I'm coming from a jazz background.

I've always had an active imagination.

I always felt like my future was at stake every time I stepped on stage and that was kind of hair-raising. At some point I just went, don't be frightened, you can't do anything wrong, it's your show.

I had a terrible manager once who described my career as 'spiraling downward.

Singing other people's material was perceived, I think, as a weakness of my persona. The effect, though, was to make me dig my heels in and try even harder to combine the two.

I didn't have any great job prospects.

Dancin' in the welfare lines.