“Ray Charles is a giant. He was one of my mentors. He would write arrangements in Braille, and translate it to me. At 14 and 16 we used to sit in Seattle on those rainy days and dream about what would happen.”
“I've never looked back in my life. I don't want to see that stuff. I had blanked out a lot of stuff ... putting my mother in a straitjacket, my father holding her down, screaming.”
“I am committing myself to doing everything possible to pull the resources together to aid the children of not only Cambodia, but the children of all the countries in the world.”
“It's worth about a half-billion dollars now. He had magazine publishing, too, with Liberty. It's ironic because I ended up being the founder of Vibe magazine. There are just a few people who will teach you what that's about.”
“Irvin has a broad taste. That's why he had all those (vocalist) girls. He had everybody, man. It was across the board and I think that's what we shared, that diversified taste.”
“They said, 'Why don't you make a hit record?' I said, 'It's not a big deal.' Because jazz musicians, there was a syndrome there. And the first record I had out was (Lesley Gore's) 'It's My Party.' I was trying to get her to change her name and I had to go to Tokyo for three weeks. I said, 'We'll fix it when I get back.' So, as soon as I got back it was No. 1. We did it, man. We had 19 hits in four years. Unbelievable.”
