Growing up on the plantation there in Mississippi, I would work Monday through Saturday noon. I'd go to town on Saturday afternoons, sit on the street corner, and I'd sing and play.

Growing up, I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in, you gotta stand in the doorway.

I used to play - when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you'd be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature.

Because with Black Label and all the fans it's just one big family.

I think musicals can be more than what people imagine. That'll be the case with 'Matilda.' It's such a clever thing to stage. Parents would have read this when they were young and will want to share it with their children because they have such a fondness for the source.

As a parent, I can empathize with how difficult raising children can be. There are challenges, especially within the framework of divorce, when parental guilt can sometimes blur what should be the best decision.