There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing. I'd listen, fascinated by the stories told in the songs. Later, when I sang those same old songs, both folk songs and popular numbers, on the stage or on the radio, they gained nationwide attention. In 1949, when I appeared on the Tex and Jinx program, I sang some of those songs, humming the parts where I didn't remember the lines. I got letters from people all over the country who sent me the words I'd forgotten. They'd remembered the old songs all those years and kept them in their minds like treasures. << less