It's all background experience and listening and exposure. That's why it's so important for people today and during any time to expose your children to lots of different kinds of things.
I kind of knew something was going on, and my older brothers and sisters were singing be-boppish kinds of stuff in the living room, and I was listening. I started singing, warmer than a summer night, at seven or eight years old.
Obviously given good health, and a continuing audience and a record company that allows me to do music. So given those things yes, I'm introducing some new music that people haven't really heard me do in quite this fashion.
My dad graduated seminary there, and so did (sounds like) Mark Kimball's grandfather. They sang in a quartet together, my dad and Mark Kimball's grandfather.
Al and Tommy and I sharing the biggest laugh because it was predicted by everything we did in the first three or four records in my career. It was predicted in the grooves that we would be here sometime later on down the road.
Jazz brought this sense of democracy where four guys come together and your name may be on the marquee, but in this moment, when you're the soloist, it's you, and we follow you. We follow you.
I watched Elvis Presley become - I listened to Elvis Presley. I watched Chuck Berry become. I listened to Little Richard. I heard that music, and it was part of my upbringing.
Let that get you up in the morning and put the light in your eyes. I'm telling you, it makes you a better husband, mother, father, neighbor, citizen, when you have that light in your eye, that you feel so good, and you're a pleasant person to be around. "Good morning, sir. Did you find everything that you need? Oh, that's over in aisle seven. I'll come help you as soon as," that's the stuff. Find something. It could be planting flowers, especially if you can watch it.
I was age six or seven, and singing, "Jesus wants me for her son, beep, to shine for him," and people smiled and pinched my cheeks till the blood vessels broke, and I knew I was doing something right.
To sing the ballad with a knowingness about what you are talking about. If it's somebody else's lyric, and the message is a little unusual for you, it requires that you learn that new message.
Once you discover that you can, then you must. And it's not easy. You have to take direct steps. You really have to count your blessings and you have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the blues.
I think a singer is an athlete. I've always tried to stay fit. Until my knee said, "Uh-uh," I was jogging. Then I started walking. They don't like walking a lot, but I'll push them.