The music played most around St. Louis was country-western and swing. Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff.

My first job at Gleason's Bar in Cleveland was $800 a week, when I was making $92 a week with overtime at the automobile plant.

I have lots of ambition!

I made records for people who would buy them. No color, no ethnic, no political - I don't want that, never did.

The greatest thing I can remember in my whole career was the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey clowns asking me to appear with them at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in 1965.

The main thing for me was that I wanted to be able to decide when my international career would end after 10 years myself.

Hopefully, I've established a career, but you can be a big sensation one day, and the next day everyone's going, 'Who? ... Who?'

When you put an individual on the cover of a big picture magazine, like 'Life of Look', their career skyrocketed. As a photographer, you were very empowered; people came to you, bowing to you and what you represented.