My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it's just kind of been like my habitat.
In Malaysia, we have a lot of divas, like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey singers. And they were all so so talented, just very talented. For example, there's this one jazz singer, her name is Sheila Majid, and I was always singing her songs.
My parents were both opera singers, and they also were both heavily into religious and church music.
In my culture, my mother's sisters are also my mother. And my father's sisters are my mother's, too. So I have many mothers. My mom has a fierce love for her children. And she's known to say things like if you die I'll kill you.
My mother and her five sisters have always been living examples of the great love that can exist among sisters - and in a large family.
My mother - the Irish side of the family - was very musical. My mother was a singer; there was music around the house all the time.
My mother's a singer and my mother's father is a singer, and everyone on both sides are all country-western bluegrass musicians.
I grew up around the pool with my sisters. Both of my sisters swam. I was always there. So I thought, why not? My mom put us in the water for water safety, so we were comfortable in the water in case anything ever happened. I learned that way, and started liking it more and more.
My daughter gets a lot of her natural music ability from her mother because she's a world-class singer, also.
I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.
I came from a big family - two brothers and two sisters. So, there were always a ton of boys around and a ton of girls around. So, I grew up comfortable with both sexes.
We call out-of-tune singers as 'Aurangazeb singers.' I wouldn't say I'm as bad as an 'Aurangazeb singer,' but I'm definitely no singer.
Irish folk is probably the biggest influence musically that I've ever had. My mother's Irish. And when I was very young, both my brothers were very into traditional music, English and Irish. They were always playing music, so I was always brought up with it.
My favorite singers in the world have been black singers, and you can go to any church and hear the best singers in the world - and I'm a singer, and I love singing!
When I was young, I had two older sisters, and since I was the youngest in my family, my mom took me around with her all the time. I was forever with her when she was having coffee in the middle of the afternoon with her three sisters. And they would talk about men. I absorbed a lot of that.
I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers - there were only white singers. They weren't even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don't know who gave us the name 'background singers,' but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background.