And that's what got me to the piano, that's what got me up in the morning: a blank piece of paper and a hope to have something by the end of the day.

You know, Quincy Jones was a great mentor, but he was a man in a man's world. Fortunately he's a very sensitive man and a beautiful human being, and even though he was 14 or 15 years older than me, he's a capable human being and has great communication skills.

I can remember in the early 60s that there were a couple of really dynamic women performers at the time - Brenda Lee, there was Connie Francis.

I think I turned to writing really just to wake up in the morning and be a musician and to have something to do, and feel like a musician every day even if I wasn't working.

Given that there was that era of girl group music and it's still very popular, but I think if you looked at the chart from that time you would see many more men on it. Because the industry, they were catering to young girls. I mean, that's what they thought their audience was.

You can only bite off so much, so you gotta know what you want to do.

I think the record industry, by and large what's left of it, is still totally homophobic. I think it's much less so in the film industry now, but the record industry, it's always been a man's world.

I just kind of lived my life naturally and did what I wanted to do.

You know, the interesting thing about having traveled around the country as much as I have, and I think it's sort of inadvertently what made me come out or at least begin doing things within the community and thinking more about that, was that I get to travel quite a bit.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.