Charles and I go back since college. None of us thought this would happen, we just wanted to play basketball. This is the highest honor that can ever be paid, and it's mind-blowing. ↗
There were a whole lot, I bought every blues record I could find, it wasn't just one or two people. My vocal influences were Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland. ↗
The first American ancestor of our name was a younger son of these old Devonshire people, and came to the Virginia colony in the reign of Charles the First. ↗
There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz. ↗