If my career detour from special education to singing has done one thing, it has afforded me the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I knew from a young age that I could sing and it was impressed upon me that if I got a classically trained education in voice, it would serve as a foundation for whatever I chose to do.
There are a lot of unseen elements to having a successful singing career.
A lot of people would have loved me to keep singing... You come to a point where you have sung, more or less... your whole repertoire and you want to get down to the job of living.
For an individual, playback singing is not enough to sustain a career, and it is not really a main source of income.
If you have a great love of singing, supported by others' fondness for your voice, then it is worth making every effort, of making every sacrifice, to achieve your goal. A great voice will easily find teachers who are willing to help a struggling young talent, and the ways of the Lord are infinite.
I've been blessed with the ability to sing, and that has taken me so many places I never would have gone otherwise.
I would much rather be a better mother or better human being than I would be a singer. Fortunately for me singing makes me a living.
My singing is really important to me, but when children come along they'll be my main focus. I'd never put my career in front of my babies - it'd be a case of fitting jobs around them.
Sometimes I wish I had taken the Bob Dylan route and sang songs where my voice would not go out on me every night, so I could have a career if I wanted.
I have to say that when I first started singing, I didn't think it was a very noble profession. I worked for people like Robert Kennedy and I thought: 'Wow, that's what it's about. That's how you change the world.' And then I watched that disintegrate in front of my eyes, and it was very discouraging.