Bud Johnson, God rest his soul of fame, a tenor saxophonist. Bud was always a big, big, big booster of mine and he always when I first met Bud in Pittsburgh when he came through there, he heard me sing and he wanted me to come to Chicago.
When you’re playing music, say for instance, you’re playing a part of the band and you’re looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand. This way, it’s
I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn’t think of it as being tough and things like that.
I just went to Harvard a little while, because I graduated from Armstrong High School in Washington and then I went up there but I didn’t stay that long because I went into show business.
My youngest daughter sings. She’s going to be very good. She’s graduated from Music School and she’s been working down around and getting her feet wet, you know. I had her out with me for a year just showing her the ropes a little bit, but she’s going to be all right.
I think a song that’s got something to say. I’m not much on gimmicks. I never have been because they don’t last. But I like a song that tells a story and has some meat to it, you know, that means something.
My view is that you cannot close your mind and say I don’t want to listen to this or that. Because if you can’t appreciate the bad for being bad, you can’t appreciate the good.
