I discovered is that I have a couple of valves that were leaky and had been giving, gave me a problem then. But I hadn't noticed anything up until then.A couple of incidents of shortness of breath and checked myself into a hospital, but that one in France really sat me down for a few minutes - a very few minutes, because seven days later I was in the studio, and eight days later, I was no the stage.
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.
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.
These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I'm washing the dishes, driving to the store and walking down the aisles. The ones that you sing when you're driving in the car and as a singer you always go back to them.
That's the way I try to live. I think it's the only way for human beings at this point in our evolution as souls, where everyone in their lifetime is going through stuff.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.
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.