1426852321619: Oh yes, Lord, Mama believed in going to church. Ou... 1426852929123: I was a happy kid. I loved the country with all it... 1426855464189: Sometimes I'm asked about my biggest musical influ... 1426858439116: Mr. Pit's place was the center of the black commun... 1426876152682: 1426876606046: Life went on for our little family in the country.... 1426877316195: It didn't take Mama long to figure out what was ha... 1427123112134: Like it or not, when the train pulled out of Green... 1427124119304: When I stepped off the train in Greensville it was... 1427124850894: [My] second year at [the Blind] school was a whole... 1427127703261: Although there was nothing really down-home about ... 1427203202374: Now you didn't find no muddy Mississippi blues on ... 1427203805929: There were also a few cats at school who could alw... 1427204394485: Whenever Joe Lee--our local Art Tatum [at the Blin... 1427207792613: This was a time in my life [around eleven or twelv... 1427209984206: I knew jazz. I loved jazz, and I could play jazz.
... 1427293682284: I loved going home for the summers... [Boarding Bl... 1427294484514: [Following the death of his mother in May 1945, Ra... 1427295039883: Here I was in Jacksonville [Florida] trying to fit... 1427295502301: My social life [in Jacksonville, Florida] wasn't a... 1427297305589: During my day, there were two types of sounds. Lea... 1427462253752: When I hit the streets [in Orlando, Florida] in th... 1427463111790: I was pretty crazy at sixteen, and if you need any... 1427463487305: 1427465433697: I bought [a record player and] a lot of the 78s [i... 1427465850391: And of course Billie Holiday always destroyed me. ... 1427467044131: I started out in a flophouse and then got lodgings... 1427467994406: I knew back then [1940’s] that Nat Cole was bigger... 1427469171078: Strangest job I had in Florida--and one of the nic... 1427563667532: About the time I was playing hot hillbilly piano [... 1427566005337: I continued writing arrangements for big bands in ... 1427570309334: It was 1950 when I moved to L.A. [California].
... 1427570909347: [O]ne evening in a Los Angeles nightclub… I found... 1427573019725: [In 1950's Los Angeles].
Lowell [Fulson] had a... 1427573962089: Lowell [Fulson] had a station wagon and a Roadmast... 1427575071318: Music was all over the place [in the 1950s]. When ... 1427575855896: We went back to L.A. from time to time and I had a... 1427805942343: 1427806379101: These were the years--'53, '54, '55--when I became... 1427806819826: This was the happiest period of my life so far [on... 1427807224156: [On tour in the mid-1950's] I was still meeting mu... 1427807512663: My band was really shaping up [in the mid-1950’s].... 1427809075430: I was playing in Kentucky in 1955 when a promoter ... 1427810864141: One night in 1957 I happened to be playing Philade... 1427812512371: The cats in the band could play the blues [1950's]... 1427813208603:
Jazz was going through some changes about now [1... 1427827577389: Something else happened in this time slot [1950’s]... 1427828274683: Hank Crawford had joined our band [in 1958]. He pl... 1427960491640: Carnegie Hall in 1959 stands out in my mind as one... 1427961471843: Atlantic sent me material they were recording of t... 1427962351368: [Hiring horn players in the late 1950’s], of all t... 1427963131168: [In 1960]… I did those duets with Betty Carter… ... 1427969509907: There was a lot of black music in the last half of... 1427970039314: 1427971185170: I've been traveling extensively outside the United... 1427971955163: I ain't real narrow in my tastes. In fact, I'm cra... 1427972187097: I remember hearing an album that Jo Stafford made ... 1427974136810: "I like it myself," [Ray Charles] says when he's p... | 