Andrae Crouch

I started singing by default, I think. Because there was a guy in the group that thought the group wasn't going to ever be anything. And I was getting ready to record, and I'd never recorded my voice. It was always other people that I featured because I thought they did a much better job.

I look at all my projects as a stair step to the next. My goal is to always get better and better.

I think that if something's really good, and it touches that part of their heart that has been untouched, or maybe it has been touched but they never wanted to admit it, I think that when they get back to that, I think that we are still in a place that people enjoy it the way it's supposed to be enjoyed.

As long as God gives me the strength to still minister and create, I'll do it.

I would imagine that most of my writing is done spontaneously. I had no intention of writing, and then I'll just walk through the house, and I'll hear this melody, and I'll turn on the tape players and go back to it later on. Some days I'll get 3-5 songs a day.

I was not influenced by any artists.

My mother's father was Jewish, so she was very conservative. She liked little, pretty music-orchestral-type things.

If you can't prove it in words, it ain't gospel. Soul music is just an expression of the mind, but your spirit has to be made alive - that's the real part, the part that God speaks to.

I love a song that will usher in the very presence of God. Then there's no Andrae; there's no fabulous band, there's no greatness of ours. I've had hundreds of concerts like that, and that's what I try to achieve.

I love doing music, and I plan to do it until I die or as long as I can walk to the piano.

When I finish a song, I thank God for bringing me through. You have to press on and know your calling. That's what I've been doing for all my life. I just went forward.

The message is that I was reminding myself and informing others of the fact that God has always been good to me. No matter what you're going through, God is always with us. Life is a journey.