Oddly enough, my mother was born in Southampton. I have roots in Southampton, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor. My grandfather, her father, Stefano Rullo, when he came from Naples, he went to Pennsylvania and worked coal mines.

[Frank] Sinatra, to everyone, even Tony Bennett, was such a huge influence because he had mastered not only music, but film and radio.

My grandmother told a story that when they used to leave from Southampton to go into the City, because he had apartment buildings in Queens - I was born in Astoria, Queens - they had apartment buildings in Queens and Manhattan, different businesses, and she wanted to pick blueberries on the side of the road and he wouldn't stop, so my grandma used to throw her purse out the window. She never had less than $4,000 cash, back in the 20s, and he would then stop the car and she would pick blueberries. And, he never had a record.

I think back, when I saw The Great Gatsby, the film, my grandfather probably helped supply all the alcohol to all these Southampton parties, back then.

I didn't want to become this stiffened - and that was just a personal choice, at that time. And, the idea was also to go to film first, get enough notoriety in film that I could interpret some of the opera stuff the way I would want to interpret it.

I met Quincy [Jones], he had heard my album, someone played the album and he flipped over it.

I had a different upbringing - my dad worked three jobs. You know, it wasn't as easy as they had it.