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I started singing in coffeehouses when I was still in high school, in Santa Barbara. I took a job washing dishes and busing tables in the coffeehouse, so I could be there, and would beg permission to sing harmony with the guy who was singing onstage. That was the first time I ever got on a stage in front of people.

I started out singing in high school in the choir and in a garage band.

I just wanted to sing, in church or wherever.

I couldn't live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, 'cause I had been to art college.

I was a kid from Oklahoma who never wanted to be a singer, but was told I could sing. And things snowballed.

I went to work in a woman's home in Los Angeles as a mother's helper. I worked there about two years. Went to school with all rich kids. I was the only poor kid in the school, and I was already insecure. But my voice saved me because I sang in school, and I was real popular because of my voice.

But, when I was about thirteen, I began to sort of sing in my neighborhood.

I sang in church choir all my life, through elementary school, junior high and high school.

I sang in choir as a kid.

I made a living out of singing Mexican music.