If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don't have their assistants and entourage, it's funny to see what happens.
Success and failure are equally surprising.
I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.
To me, there's two kinds of music these days. There's ephemeral music, and there's music that has lasting power and depth.
Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.
You must always be very cautious and be as vigilant as you can. You work diligently to provide a secure environment,.
Chronic Lyme causes arthritis, heart problems, stroke - even death.
If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.
Around 1974, I graduated into the occult, and spent a sold six or seven years immersed in the Kabala and the Chaldean, Celtic, and Druidic traditions I also became fascinated with Aleister Crowley, the nineteenth-century magician who shared these beliefs.
I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.
Any song I don't feel good about, I shelve. Anything you ever hear me sing, it's because I want to.
Nobody's going to sell 10 million records by not working hard.
The Daryls House thing has made me into a live musician even more than I ever was, and even in the way I record.
I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.
Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.
I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.
If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And I was influenced a lot by that.
The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.
I have gone from one relationship to a marriage and stepchildren.
I love antique architecture, so if I have any indulgences, I have owned and renovated and reconstructed a lot of old houses.
When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.
The biggest honor of my career was when I won R&B Artist of the Year back in the 1970s. I look at that as a major honor.
Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.
