“No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.”

“I was always a dreamer, in childhood especially. People thought I was a little strange.”

“Fans are what make a performer and I've always taken them seriously.”

“I grew up not liking my father very much. I never saw him cry. But he must have. Everybody cries.”

“Performing is an experience, for me, that is as humbling as it is energizing.”

“For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.”

“No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.”

“The time I spent thinking about how I was better than somebody else or worrying about somebody else's attitude was time I could put to better use.”