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

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

You can't lose the essence of a song. I try to enhance it more than anything else.

I don't think you can sing about certain things when you're a teen-ager or in your early 20s, because you haven't lived long enough. So I think living gives you character and that comes out in your voice.

Dean Martin always dressed very well but then he was a good looking fella with a good physique so he could wear anything.

I've tried wearing more than one ring on one hand and it doesn't look good. It's overkill, I think. So I think a ring on either hand. Nine times out of ten I'll go for pinky rings, but not always.

Whenever I've been asked to be in a film, directors only want me to play myself... I'm fascinated by the thought of being an actor, but it's too hard. And I think Shakespeare-which has been suggested to me-might be a bit of a stretch.