Ginger Baker was never my favorite, but he was part of the group Cream that opened the door to what we did. They were the first band to really get into improvisation. They were an absolute necessity to what came later.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.
I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.
Of all the soul divas, Gladys Knight was the one for me. Knight's always been about tone and heart, none of the big showboating or extraneous doodling. She nailed a melody and only played a little around the edges like Ma Staple.
One of my biggest musical influences is definitely Ella Fitzgerald as a vocalist.
Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I'm a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.
When I was seven or eight I was really into Cream, really into Led Zeppelin.
I was fortunate enough to hook up with Quincy Jones and had a lot of success. But the music of the '80s really changed when the '90s hit. For me to chase that dream or career of music, I started a family, started on 'Melrose Place,' so it was something I didn't have the time or energy.
My favorite bands were Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad. If you listen to some of my early music, you can hear it.
I was super-obsessed with the Spice Girls. Ginger was my favorite. They had a tour in 2008, and my home girls went, but I didn't have the money to go!
I enjoyed every minute of what I was doing with sessions, because The Blossoms, the group that I was singing with, they were the first black background singers. There weren't any.