There was a time when I was in the South, singing, and someone came to me before the show and said, 'There's been a threat on your life. Someone had phoned in and said they were going to shoot you if you go on stage.' I was singing 'Chances Are,' and I kept moving so they wouldn't have a shot at me.
Each person's voice is very different, so you need to find what works for you. Make sure you keep to your routine.
The world changes. The world is completely different now from when I was growing up. Back then, you didn't say things like they say now, out loud, about race and things. But that's just progress. When are we going to find out that we're all the same - we're all absolutely, without a doubt, the same?
My mom and dad always tried to make Christmas special for us. We were poor, but it's funny because we had no idea.
Most of the people I hang out with who sing love it, and they just want to do it until they die. I still look forward to the performances. And believe it or not, they're all kind of different. Even though you sing the same songs, and maybe you go to the same venues, it just feels completely different every time you go on stage.
Every time I try to tell people things about my career, I wonder if that's the truth or something I'm fantasizing about.
I was a mediocre basketball player. But I was there, and I could remember the plays. And my basketball coach, after he retired from teaching, would come to my performances all the time. And I was very happy about that, because I was not memorable as a basketball player.
First, I try to take everything away that doesn't matter to singing. It sounds simplistic, but it works. There is absolute focus on singing: producing sounds and emotions that I have always enjoyed. This is key.
The fact that I'm not a good musician - I throw it around, tell people that - it doesn't matter that much. It only matters to me, because I idolized good musicians. I absolutely worshiped them.
I had stage fright for years and years, and I could hear it in my singing. But since I've done it so often for so many years, you'd think that I'd relax a little bit, and I think that I have.
When you say, 'I'm going to sing it once, and everyone is going to hear it forever,' that's kind of frightening.
I invite a lot of my friends to some of the performances that I do locally, and some of them know that I'm involved with music, but they're not quite sure how. And so it's kind of fun to play golf with a lot of my friends and then invite them to hear me sing once in a while.
The voice muscle doesn't last forever. I have a lot of friends who are classical and opera singers. My friend Beverly Sills stopped singing in her 50s, so I'm careful with mine. But I'll keep going as long as it lets me.
In other words, the celebrity gets out of hand, and if you're not careful, you will forget what you are about - and that is you are about making music that people want to hear.
I've paid the price over the years, though: a lot of injuries and surgeries related to my sports career; my hips and knees took a lot of wear and tear.