It's self-effacing, it's hard-luck, the shtetl stories. All those Coasters things are an amalgam of Yiddish and black humor.
I heard this music coming out of the radio and it was 'Ain't Nobody's Business.' It got me. I thought, 'I can do this.' I decided just like that. No romantic story.
Red-hot songs were born on the black streets of Baltimore, where I delivered five-gallon cans of kerosene and ten-pound bags of coal.
Irving Berlin was the greatest songwriter of all time. I was in awe of him. But his music wasn't my music. My music was the blues.
Elvis Presley, you can't define him in a couple of sentences, but he was a country boy and he was very respectful.
Listen to any cantor, any good hazan, sing and you can hear a little bit of Ray Charles going on.
Elvis was incredibly cooperative. He would try anything. He wasn't a diva, no prima donna. When it came to work, he was a workhorse.
