As a matter of fact they'd blacken us down. I guess there's a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he had his idea of what we look like.
I think a song that's got something to say. I'm not much on gimmicks. I never have been because they don't last. But I like a song that tells a story and has some meat to it, you know, that means something.
I knew exactly what I was, and there was no hang-up with me. None whatsoever. The fact that the pigment of my skin maybe being lighter brown than other people of my race, maybe some of them, but you know our race has all colors.
I just went to Harvard a little while, because I graduated from Armstrong High School in Washington and then I went up there but I didn't stay that long because I went into show business.
Bud Johnson, God rest his soul of fame, a tenor saxophonist. Bud was always a big, big, big booster of mine and he always when I first met Bud in Pittsburgh when he came through there, he heard me sing and he wanted me to come to Chicago.
When you're playing music, say for instance, you're playing a part of the band and you're looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand. This way, it's up and it goes right on out to the audience, you know?
I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn't think of it as being tough and things like that.
You know, times change and the elements change along with it. The elements of success. And my son's very successful. He's doing very well. And I have a younger daughter who sings.
Today the kids that are out now they make a hit record and they put them right out on the stage with 10,000 people out there and they don't know anything about the business yet.
