Time is my enemy. Time will catch up with me vocally. And I dread that. I dread to think about life without singing.

Plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt. That's why I love vegetables, you know what they're about!

Oh yeah, I would have been a coal miner, I would think, if I hadn't had tuberculosis when I was 12.

I love listening to new stuff, at home in LA I always have the radio on to hear what is happening.

Winning the Outstanding Contribution award is great, because you know you have won in advance. Previously, I have been really nervous during the ceremony because you have no idea if you are going to get called up on stage. This time I could relax and enjoy myself.

When you first start off, I know singers who have only been in the business just a short amount of time, and they've already written their autobiography. I didn't want to write it too soon. I wanted to live a while and write about things that I felt were important to me - growing up in Wales, and the characters that I met and listened to.

I come from a coal-mining, working-class background. My father was a coal miner.