I get along with all the women singers but especially Dolly Parton. We talk the same hillbilly language.

I'm so thankful for the Internet because actors and singers and performers now have a way to connect with their fans on a very personal level which I think is quite special.

Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire 'troubadours.' I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L'Occitane I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers like Frank Sinatra and myself we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written we go back to the greatest songs.

I don't really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It's good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly - rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it's their style.

I've always said that Adele has turned so many people on to British singers - whether female singers or just like music from this country in general.

It's very much like opera singers. They do the same thing. The first thing in the morning and the last thing at night the thing they think about is their voice and how to take care of it.

My parents were both in show business. My father was an actor my mom an actress and both singers dancers and actors. They met in Los Angeles doing a play together and so I grew up in a show biz family.

The fact is that the learning process goes on and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.

You know fame is a funny thing man especially you know actors musicians rappers rock singers it's kind of a lifestyle and it's easy to get caught up in it - you go to bars you go to clubs everyone's doing a certain thing... It's tough.

I have such happy memories of performing in a choir and I don't think I'd have got where I am today without all that experience. So my advice to young singers is to either join your school or church's choir or find one in your local area. Choral music at any level teaches you so much about musicianship and blending your voice.

The best thing I ever learned from my dad was he knew he wasn't the best of singers but he always knew he was a great entertainer and I always thought that was a good concept to bring along that ultimately acting is an entertainment art and you have to be aware of the fact that you want people to be excited to be watching you.

He was a manager one of the singers I guess talent coordinator for the local talent in Harlem. His name was Lover Patterson. He was living right across the street from where my dad had his restaurant. I guess he saw a lot of kids come in a lot of my buddies.

My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music eventually I wanted to play an instrument.

Like all soul singers I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.

Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together.I would hear him sing every night.

It's been a joy to be a part of other people's journey to be able to inspire and be a part of new singers coming up in this business.

Lead singers not only do the majority of the work but their personalities are singled out and taken as the general attitude of the unit.

Well Jeff Buckley for me is one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. And the reason why is he has an amazing range amazing emotional power in his voice. And the music he put around it also just had this passion and this soul to it and this spirit to it that very few artists have and he passed at a very young age.