I sang in the coffee houses of the country in the early '60s with no idea of success in terms of records or television. I just thought I was a storyteller. I didn't even think of myself as a singer.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.
I grew up with music in the house. I was told I could sing as soon as I started talking. Everybody in my family sang, always lots of records, blues and jazz and soul, R&B, you know, like Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Coltrane, that kind of thing.
My mother was a singer, and both of her sisters were singers. There was always music around.
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 was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mother sang.
I never saw myself as a singer; I never really thought I had the voice for it.
I grew up singing. My mother was a music teacher.
I ended up writing songs and growing up in public with my songwriting. And it's a good thing for me back then: in the early '70s, there was a thing called artist development, where an artist could find his feet, find himself, find his voice. I think I made five or six albums before I sold five or six albums.
Originally I considered myself a singer.
In my early life, I was a professional folk singer. I used to sing on the national television and radio in Canada. Nobody knows that - but now I've said it, haven't I? I'm strictly a shower singer at the minute.