Singing as a full-time job was not something I had given a lot of thought to and I had no clear notion of the money to be made in it.
A black man singing about a blond girl was potential trouble.
Hopefully I'll be successful with the singing, but there are so many other things I want to do, like acting. I'll do them one at a time first!
I remember him watching me through the crack of a door singing with a hairbrush. I was in front of his mirror. I think he wanted me to sing. He would get me on the table and make me sing sometimes or play the piano. He was very encouraging on that front.
Mostly singing was cathartic, writing was cathartic, therapeutic. I don't think I had a goal, particularly, to sing or put it out there for anybody.
People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn't copy my style from anybody.
The closest I ever came to getting married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my neck.
The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.
I like to sing ballads the way Eddie Fisher does and the way Perry Como does. But the way I'm singing now is what makes the money.
I miss my singing career very much.
Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. I'm no longer on earth.
I will be singing primarily all the songs from the musicals that I have been in from over the years.
I think that one of Elvis' charms was that he could sing almost any kind of music. I am sure that in his heart, which I don't know what was there, but just from his singing I could feel that he was very partial to gospel music.
Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.
When I'm up on stage, I don't think about anything except the song I'm singing. Anyway, the majority of my audience is female, and I can't think that many of them want to see me a French maid outfit somehow!