I was trying to find an original style that didn't sound like Tony Bennett or anyone else. So I prayed about it, woke up with this high voice, and by 1954, I was going to amateur nights and winning.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wish I could have performed with Jeff Buckley, but I missed my chance.
Bill Bennett really became an idol for me. I listened to him every morning from 6 to 9 for, oh, years.
I don't have that kind of voice, the big baritone or rousing tenor sound. My wheelhouse was in the frothier pieces. So my appreciation for those older musicals and revivals grew.
I gathered that those two Big-shot Boys, Joe + Fletcher, just was afraid to let me sing, thinking maybe I'd sort of ruin their reputations with their musical public. They not knowing that I had been singing all of my life. In churches, etc. I had one of the finest All Boys Quartets that ever walked the streets of New Orleans.
Shortly after this I was made a member of the boys' choir, it being found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the singing very much.
I was like Gene Kelly, it was called singing in the rain. No seriously, I wasn't really born with a singing voice, but my friends Joe and John taught me how to sing.
And one of my favorites was Eddy Arnold of course. He just had that smooth, soulful voice.
It was he who impressed, time and again, the necessity of singing as nature intended, and - I remember - he constantly warned, don't let the public know that you work. So I went slowly. I never forced the voice.
I was doing a late-night round as a milkman in 1978 when I heard a radio DJ announce that he was leaving. I marched straight to the radio station and told them I could do better. For some reason, they gave me a go.
I sang at the Inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral.