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I'd always put on little shows at home, but when I was 11, I did a community event in Woodford, where anyone could go. You had three days of vocal training and performed your song at the end. I sang 'I Say a Little Prayer.' It's a tough song to sing but they gave me the confidence to go for it and belt it out.
I auditioned for a solo in church and got it. I was about seven and I sang a song called, 'Jesus, I Heard You Had a Big House' and I remember people standing up at the end and me thinking, 'Oh, I think I'm going to like this.' That's how it all began. Sounds funny to say you got your start in church, but I did.
The struggle for Zimbabwe lit up the imagination of people around the world. In London, New York, Accra and Lagos, bell-bottomed men and women with big hair and towering platform shoes sang the dream of Zimbabwe in the words of the eponymous song by Bob Marley: Every man has the right to decide his own destiny.
We sang a lot of church music. We were very active Baptists. Supposedly, I started singing when I was being given a bath - at 14 months or something like that. My mother and dad both swore that was true, but I'm sure it wasn't very good... We always had the Metropolitan Opera on the radio on Saturday afternoons.
It took five days to drive to Los Angeles by myself. I listened to Abbey Road for six hours at a time and watched the desert open up before me again and again. I saw the sun set and rise at the Grand Canyon, and I sang out over the cliffs, picked up tumble weeds along the way and threw them in the back of my car.
I went to church every Sunday and sang in the choir. But for all that the church gave me - for all that it represented belonging, love and community - it also shut its doors to me as a gay person. That experience left me with the lifelong desire to explore the power of religion to transform lives or destroy them.
Whenever they sang a certain song in church, I used to sing it the loudest: 'Lead me, guide me, along the way!' One day, as I was singing this song, I felt as if the Lord was saying to me, 'Lead you along what way?' I realized then that if you don't have a plan, God doesn't have anything specific to direct you in.
There is nothing cooler than to have them singing your words back to you. The last show I did, I was kind of nervous about putting the mic out there, because you're not sure how it's going to go. But I did, and they sang the whole chorus. I thought, 'Holy crap! That is the coolest feeling.' It's the biggest rush ever.
I actually did a project with my puppet one time in fourth grade. I made up a song that went with the rhythm to a song I do now. And I had to make up a song about a penguin and research and put information in the song about a penguin. And I sang it with my duck, because I didn't have a penguin puppet, but close enough.
I ran to get my cassette recorder and sang 'We Got the Beat' into the recorder to document it. I knew I had written something special. It took two minutes. I didn't labor on the lyrics. It's a simple song, which goes back to the '60s, when I had my ears glued to the radio for the Stones, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys.
It's something that I've always done. I started singing when I was four years old; that was the first time I took a voice lesson. I would say, maybe from five years on, I sang on stages constantly. That's what I call my natural habitat: It's a place where I feel most like myself and the most confident, the most excited.
I'm from Washington state - a pretty small town there called Puyallup. I was really into the arts there. I sang in choirs and did singing competitions. I also did a whole lot of theater; I did high school, and then I started doing some community theater. I decided that was the kind of thing I wanted to study in college.
I always did plays. When I was in kindergarten, I got chosen to be Alvin in 'The Chipmunks.' We did a Chipmunks song. I was always a natural performer. It was easy for me. I danced and I sang, and all that stuff. I felt like I'd be something in the arts, but it vacillated between being a dancer and a singer, or whatever.
My aunt is the director of the acapella group Black Voices. I was so struck by them as a child. They sang with such passion and conviction. By the time I turned 15, I had plucked up the courage to ask if I could join the group. Acapella is a different discipline from singing with an accompaniment - it is much more exposed.
Before the Berlin Wall came down, we played behind the Iron Curtain and sang, 'Born in the U.S.A.,' and I thought, 'We're all going to die. The man is going to get us all killed.' But then you saw all these kids with the American flag and German flags together and singing the song, and it was, wow, like 'We Shall Overcome.'
I've always loved the songs of the sea. I was first introduced to them back in 1957, at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I used to go to Pete Seeger concerts, and he would do songs like 'Ruben Ranzo' and talk about how the sailors sang songs to do their work - to raise the anchors, pull up the sails and that sort of thing.
I went to squat with a bunch of friends - creative, intelligent, political people. We got involved in a community project funded by the Arts Council and we made this video. I sang a poem and somebody, I think it was Richard Coles, who was later my partner in the Communards, said I had a very strange sound and I should use it.
When I was a kid, when I was 16, 17, I'd come home from high school, and my dad collected all of Barbra Streisand's records. And she was very young then. I think she probably had three records out, and she was 21, and we had them all. And I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell. And I sang along to it.
All the Jewish tradition I had came from my grandmother, who grew up in Palestine and eloped with my grandfather and went to New York. She lived very close to us until she died when I was around 20. She sang a lot of songs, led the Passover seders. It was a very rich part of my life, and my grandmother was a big part of my life.
My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.
With *NSYNC, we shopped our deal for a year in America, sang a capella in everybody's office, then moved to Germany for almost two years and became popular there. A guy representing a rock band came to our show in Budapest, saw 60,000 people get excited for a band from America that nobody in America knew, and told someone at RCA.
I sang in a reggae band. And then there was a soul band where I sang back-up vocals and some lead. And I was also in a women's a capella group. And I was in the gospel choir at school. Actually, I've always been in choirs. Or some kind of group. Just because I love singing so much. But I truthfully never thought of it as a career.
I was given the opportunity to write the kind of book that I wanted to write, rather than one that catalogues where I sang and what I sang and what I wore. I wanted to write a book about an American family, the family that has produced me. The longer I live, the more I realise the incredible support and love we were given as children.
I always knew I would sing. I just didn't know if I would be successful or not. But I sang at school, I sang at parties, I sang at church. Everyone always asked me to sing. I'd be playing football with my friends, and my parents would ask me to sing for their guests. I was never very happy about that because I wanted to play football.
I used to be really nervous when I sang. Like, when I was a kid starting young, 18 and 19, and my dad really had to sort of push me to start singing in front of people. Ever since I got out there and really started doing it, the only thing I've ever tried to do is just sort of is be myself, you know, never put on a voice. Sing naturally.
Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.
When I auditioned for drama college, they asked me to do my Shakespeare. I couldn't do it. They asked me to do my modern, and I couldn't do it. They asked me if I had a song prepared, and I said 'No,' so I sang 'Happy Birthday.' And I did a reasonable improvisation, a reasonable one, nothing special at all. I don't know how I got in, but I did.
My microphone went out in the 2009 Tony Awards. It was my big moment, and I was so excited to perform and lead the cast; I sang 'Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat.' Every actor dreams of standing front and center on the Tony Awards, and I start to sing, and you hear this crackling. I had no idea what to do - were they going to stop a live telecast?
