Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

When you think about it, we sold about 120 million records, which relates to about £1.2 billion in the U.K. economy. We've seen very little of that.

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. From my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.

I don't get writer's block. I don't try to write anything; when something comes, I write it. I just practice and when I get an idea I write it down.

I like the power and versatility of a big band and how an orchestra can vary the dynamics from very loud to very quiet, and SNJO covers those bases.

I never received any encouragement. My father would work nights and my mother would work during the day. We were expected to get a job with a trade.

We think about strategies in pop songs to make people listen to them and be like, "What the hell was that?" But then they have to listen to it again.

The amazing thing is that I'm sane. I'm not bitter. I'm not drugged out. I'm not broke. I'm still married to the same guy. My children don't hate me.

When 'I'm Sorry' came out and became such a huge hit, that made 'Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree' start selling. Then that became a huge, huge hit.

Radio is paid by advertising. They decide what songs to play that'll keep people listening. And that's what promoters and the Classic Rock people do.

I've done a lot of research on science and theology to try and get a better understanding of what happens to the human soul or what potential it has.

I've never been troubled by disappointment, and I get over it quickly. But I'm not good at making plans, and I don't have any ambitions. I never did.

With a smaller setting, you have a lot more freedom and flexibility within a given moment, but not necessarily the velocity you have with a big band.

It's not that I don't love the song. My songs are like my children: some you want around and some you want to send off to college as soon as possible.

I just wanted to be in show biz. I wanted to make music and sing and dance, tell jokes and stories, make ya smile, make ya cry - and charge you $ 8.50

I've grown a lot as a singer and a songwriter, but also as a person. I communicate better with my band, and our relationships are stronger and closer.

I think I'm a mama's boy who wanted to be a hockey player, who failed, and had to become a singer. I think that I'm a generous, impatient, kind, jerk.

The fame is the downside. I can't think of many positive things about it - except that when I go to parties, I don't have to stand there like a lemon.

I'm a songwriter. I've got ideas in the closet that just didn't work out with my band, that I think, "This is a great idea, it's just the wrong guys."

I think that especially in the U.S. there's this kind of sensationalizing of news - and making it almost like CNN and stuff are entertainment networks.

Due to the world I've been part of in creating art for so many years, I feel really connected to pop culture and what younger people are talking about.

Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show.

The band can't exist without the crowd, and the crowd wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the band, and it really is something magical that people need.

Benji usually tries to match his hair with his underwear, and you know how he had the pink hair for a while well we caught him in a pink thong one day!

I went to a Catholic high school, and I was super rebellious. I would dress weird or play jazz. I was definitely pushing against whatever was going on.

Out in L.A., things relax even further than they do in Chicago. There's such a looseness to it, and there's a potentially refreshing advantage to that.

It turns out that I'm far too schizophrenic musically for people to categorize me. I think people judge me a lot before they ever really know who I am.

You want to be commercially successful and critically acclaimed. But the truth is, there's only a few Bruce Springsteens and Paul McCartneys out there.

I grew up in a somewhat religious family. My dad's family isn't religious at all, but my mom's side of the family is, so I was exposed to church a bit.

I'm sorry if I took some things for granted, I'm sorry for the chains I put on you. But more than anything, I'm sorry for myself for living without you.

I believe I became one of the first singers to be launched via television exposure. I guess I was a new kind of musical stylist for a new kind of media.

I'm talking like 10, 12 years old. Either junior brings Mom and Pop or Mom and Pop bring the kids. I'm talking young here, not a college drinking crowd.

Man, I just feel so fortunate to be a jazz musician at all. I have a hard time thinking of it any other way. It's such a fulfilling vocation. I love it.

I've tried to educate myself in the world and what's beautiful and what has meaning and is lasting. Then I just follow my intuition and see how it fits.

Drugs and alcohol were ruling my life. I made a lot of bad decisions while I was drinking alcohol. The first thing I stopped was cigarettes and tobacco.

And for him [Kurt Cobain] to do that [suicide] - I didn't like that. I thought that was just wrong. It just sent a bad message to a troubled generation.

What greater thing can you do - besides for God - than good for other people? That goes for you mean people, too - I mean, really, what is your problem?

John Coltrane - I've been listening to the 'Trane again. It blows you away, because I know more now and I hear more now and I had a life that I've lived!

If I never sang on a record again I can still look at my walls. They are covered floor to ceiling with gold and platinum records from all over the world.

Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me.

The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.

Elvis's voice was unique. Like so many others, he had natural, technical ability, but there was something in the humanity of his voice, and his delivery.

Pilates is amazing. It makes you conscious of how you have been doing something incorrectly for so long, even something as simple as just standing there.

We've known Cyndi Lauper since she was in 'Blue Angel'; we did a TV show with her back in '79 or '80. We don't have any competition; we're complementary.

I would have loved to have been a broadcast journalist. I'd even love to be the weather girl. I have to watch the weather every night; I'm just obsessed.

Devotion is a way of being, it's not something you do. It's dedication to finding awareness and Love. Chanting is like asanas for the mind and the heart.

Backup singers just bring so much more life to the situation. When a voice opens up, there comes the life.That's when it's a person-to-person connection.

Hating people isn’t a productive way of living. So what’s the point in hating anyone? There’s enough hate in the world as it is, without me adding to it.

Lord God, I long to hear Your voice but not just secondhand through teachers, as wonderful and godly as they can be. I long to hear Your voice firsthand.

We were using the record as a tool to invest money into real estate all through the South, because we were living in an era where the South was changing.

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