It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I used to go to Bourbon Street when I was a kid and there would be club after club after club of people who were around when the music started. I mean these are legendary, maybe not so well known, but legendary musicians.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.

I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.

Music my rampart, and my only one.