I go on stage with what God gave me - and that's a natural high. I don't need nothing to perk me up. The audience picks me up enough. That's the total God's truth.
In my relationship with a young guy I was going with in a band - his name was Sylvester, and I think he had another little girl on the side - I told him, 'If you lose me, you're going to lose a good thing.' And I went home and put that poem to music.
I tell my grandchildren - I've got seven of them - to go to college and get that degree first. I could have stayed in college and still recorded. Isn't that something? The kids of today are doing it.
God has taken care of me, and mother dear has taken care of me, too. All my life.
You'd always see a lady or a little girl sitting at a piano. I decided I wanted to play something more unexpected, so that's when I got interested in learning to play the guitar.
I decided that playing piano was a little bit too common, you know what I mean?
I really wish that I would have gone to college. Even my son, who's into rap himself, I tell him and tell his children, 'Go to college. Get that education - it is so important. Don't do like I did.' I had all this singing on my mind, and I just didn't have time for it.
I've gotta stick to my roots, and my roots are blues.
