I had five brothers and sisters. Four of them older, and some of them played instruments, and we would get together and have family recitals and raise money for the church. I belonged to a wonderful church community that encouraged me to sing.
Pressure is when you've got thirty-five bucks riding on a four-foot putt and you've only got five dollars left.
Maybe there's a whole other universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything.
My parents were in the local church choir, and I used to go along and sing and play the organ at all the weddings and christenings.
Man, them engagement rings, boy, they cost a lot. I was looking at 'em. Cost like a thousand bucks, two thousand bucks, y'know. Three thousand bucks. Something like that- four thousand bucks. Big number divisible by a thousand, anyways.
People assume NFL cheerleaders are within some vague sniffing distance of the good life, but a Ben-Gal is paid seventy-five bucks per game. That is correct: seventy-five bucks for each of ten home games. The grand cash total per season does not keep most of them flush in hair spray, let alone gas money to and from practice.
And then my husband works every second weekend, sermons on Sunday, baptising on Saturdays, weddings.
You don't know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket.
They spent all week saving pennies and went out Saturdays to spend fifty bucks in three hours.
My little brother and grandma told me I could sing. I used to sing in church, too. Not like in the choir or anything, but for people around the church... on the church bus going home and Christmas plays.
My dad would give me $10, which is a lot of money when you're 9, to sing at church, on tables at restaurants, at family functions, just about anywhere.
I'm the only person in my family who can't sing. My grandmother was an opera singer and all of her kids were in church five days a week - or between church and vocal lessons at Carnegie Hall. But my mom had her first studio experience recording on my album. She's used to having to fill the room, so she had to adjust to the microphone and not sing opera.
It's not like being a professional basketball player where you're in a big house. Maybe three, four or five guys make a couple million bucks a year, but that's it. The rest of them have second jobs.
My sister and I used to sing at weddings. We would sing 'When a Man Loves a Woman' to the bride. We'd do it right before the garter ceremony.
Anytime I can get into a situation in which I'm running routes, I love it. I mean, I'd go out in the streets and just run some routes.
Some men are like a church-organ -- you can play on them for a lifetime and always find new harmonies; others are like a music-box -- they have four or five thin jingles.