In an Italian household, there were two figures for me growing up - you had the Pope and you had Frank Sinatra, and, of course, Tony Bennett. And not necessarily in that order.

I had always been affected by films, as well, of course - and great films.

I would want to bring a certain kind of unity and awareness to different things. Even in the 80s, I wanted to do something with Unicef, and I wrote a song for Unicef, but I didn't have any means or the celebrity.

Here I was in Estonia, doing a concert for 5,000 people, and not many people know the song My Way - Gorbachev in the 80s, My Way had just become a famous song, and [Mikhail] Gorbachev in a satirical, kind of cynical manner coined the term the Sinatra Doctrine and My Way was the song because the Baltic states in the Warsaw Pact wanted to go their own way and secede from the Soviet Union, so joking he says," Yeah, we've got the Sinatra Doctrine now."

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.

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

You have your children and it's hard to even hold it in - emotionally.