As a singer, I've been criticized for sounding feminine. They say I don't belong in any category, male or female, pop or jazz. But early on, I saw my suffering as my salvation.
Jimmy Scott
All I needed was the courage to be me. That courage took a lifetime to develop.
I started out in the 1940s, singing around the clubs of Cleveland, Ohio, where I grew up. There was a woman in showbusiness, a contortion dancer called Estelle 'Caldonia' Young - she was named after the song Caledonia Caledonia.
I love show business. It's my life, honey, and I try to enjoy it.
My pug dog, Princess , is something else; she's my baby. I've had her for about 14 and a half years. They usually don't live any longer than 15, but I don't believe that. As long as you treat them right, they will live a long time.
Earlier I had been in New York, which was my first time to New York, and I got booked in the Baby Grand up in Harlem there. I was booked there for a week; they kept me there for about a month. That's where Doc Pomus and myself became very close friends and start running together around town and what not.
Show business has always been my life. I love it. I've shared the ups and downs. So it will still be my life. It is a big piece of your life because this is all you know. It just seems like it takes you to such great heights in your life.
I'm a cereal lover. I could eat it in the morning, in the evening, and at night - I love Cheerios.
I was born with Kallmann syndrome. I have never complained about it, as I can't do anything to change it - and I wouldn't have acquired the voice that I have.
I've had statements made - 'Who in the heck wants to hear a 60-year-old singer?' That statement was made - it's disheartening, you know, because you say, 'Well, hey, why should a guy feel like that about it?'
Jeanie McCarthy is the love of my life. She's the only woman who really understands me, my music, and my heart. It took me a long time to find my soul mate, but thank God I found her before I moved to the other side of time.
I've taken regular gigs, I've worked in grocery stores, worked as a dishwasher, a porter in different places, all for survival. I don't feel bad about doing it. I wished I could have done better. And still do.
There were times, I could say, later in the career, that I wished that my voice would be deeper for materials that I might've wanted to select to do. But that's the style of my voice. There's nothing I can do about the height of my voice. And so I learned to deal with it.
If you're singing, you're telling a story. So to tell it and tell it right, that's it.
I project stronger. If you notice the old records - they're much lighter - vocally much lighter in sound than the records that I'm doing today.
I've learned that music is such a healer.
As long as I could sing my songs, I wasn't as angry about what had happened, about being shoved back for this or shoved back for the other.
I'm a singer, and I never lost sight of that.
There's times, in certain songs, that I might be in my own world, and who cares about who's out there, you know? You have a job to do, so you do that job of singing that song or telling that story because that's what you're doing.
When the gig ain't there, you still got to pay the rent. I learned that a long time ago.
In show business, generally you don't retire. If you love it, that is, you're in it forever anyway.
I decided to sing again after settling in Newark in 1982. I had a burning desire to sing and lots of encouragement from my new wife, Earlene.
I was living in New York. Sometimes, our gang of musicians would go to Louis Armstrong's home and play records. It was a lesson, like going to school at night. Ella Fitzgerald was an inspiration, too, a unique artist. When you had an opportunity to be with people like them, you cherished it.
We had a teacher in school who would organize dramatic shows. And she decided to put on a show about - I don't know whether you remember - 'Ferdinand the Bull', the comic script. However, she decided, you're going to sing Ferdinand, me, as a role.
