I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me, not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.
In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.
A famous person to themselves, they don't get up in the morning and think, I'm famous. I'm not famous to me. Famous is a perception.
The future is keeping you out of the present time.
These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.
Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.
There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.
I'm very lucky, I'm happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don't have any regrets whatsoever.
I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.
I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.
Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.
Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.
If it's what you do and you can do it, then you do it.
Hearing the blues changed my life.
When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.
I always record far more than I can use. There's probably twice as much recorded as comes out.
I am about the arrangements and the layers of depth in the music.
You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works.
The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.
What you see is what you get.
