We worked over at that place The Plantation Inn with The Del Rios. It was really wild over there.

We worked over at that place The Plantation Inn with The Del Rios. It was really wild over there.

I wear a lot of different hats - from writer to producer and artist. We all do 5 or 6 jobs, everything from creating our own graphic design to actually recording and the whole bit.

I felt a little uncomfortable because, when I went in to the military, I was the main male vocalist they had and when I came out they had like two or three vocalists. Otis came in when I was in the military, too.

Some of my other heroes around that time were, oddly enough, Frank Sinatra, Nat Cole and people like that - I was always more inclined to listen to ballads.

Growing up in Memphis and listening to all kinds of music and dreaming... So that was one of the first times I wrote a complete song and set it to music and the whole bit. From then on, I was busy with it.

There was some scene in The Blues Brothers movie, when they had the chicken wire across the front of the stage, and it was almost like that. They had a big guard rail around the stage, which kept the college kids from getting on... we had some good times.

The first song that I wrote was when I was with The Del Rios. I was like 14 years old but I was always putting my thoughts down on paper even before then because it was like an escape - a way of unleashing all the stuff.

It's been a rollercoaster ride. There have been some great moments and some low points... like when I was leaving Stax. That's when I actually thought of getting out of the business.

When I came out of the military, I had a club in Memphis and I started using the The Bar Kays as my club band. They were still only in the middle school - but I'd take them on the road with me on the weekends, sometimes.

When I came out of service, the first couple of releases didn't really hit so I just took a little hiatus and sat down to see what was happening. I just glued my ears to the radio and then I started writing - the first hit record that came out was "Everybody Loves a Winner."

I stayed with them for about a year up there and, at night, worked over in Long Island at a club called The High Hat Club which was like a pseudo jazz / blues place.

When I came out of service, the first couple of releases didn't really hit so I just took a little hiatus and sat down to see what was happening. I just glued my ears to the radio and then I started writing - the first hit record that came out was 'Everybody Loves a Winner.'

'Syndicate' is technically the first game I worked on.

I feel Afghanistan has a very strong social fabric and sense of family... what I would like to do is encourage everybody in the country to appreciate more the role of women at home and outside.

Consistency is the horror of the world.

I love that feeling of going into a packed theater.

Music is very helpful, not just for the actors, but the whole crew and myself. It gives you the tone of the scene. Everyone is focused on the tone of the scene when we are shooting, and we are having an emotional reaction to the music immediately.

I don't control my writing - it controls me.

Cities are, first of all, seats of the highest economic division of labor.

Attention pays attention to a lot of things, but when attention pays attention to attention, then there is a stillness, and that stillness introduces you to your self.

I feel like the more I work on different songs and the more I work on my voice constantly... I always feel better after I post a cover. Even if it's doing the little 15 second covers, I'm working on my craft, and it's really good for me, and I feel good after I do it.

Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.

Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.

As a researcher, every once in a while you encounter something a little disconcerting. And this is something that changes your understanding of the world around you, and teaches you that you're very wrong about something that you really believed firmly in.

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

What I really dream of is that somebody would blow everything I've done out of the water in a beautiful way, which would clear the way for something better to come along.

Seeing people who are actually reading your book and listening to the wide variety of reactions they have to it, is really special.

Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody.

A Code of Honor Never approach a friends girlfriend or wife with mischief as your goal. There are just too many women in the world to justify that sort of dishonorable behavior. Unless shes really attractive.

It's hardly news that the Obama administration is intensely and, in many respects, unprecedentedly hostile toward the news-gathering process.

I may never let go of my wrath, my anger, but I will always have the last laugh.

To not be self-conscious of your appearance is huge, and something that I desperately hope to carry into film at some point in my useless life - to not be thinking, 'My ear looks weird from this angle, why is the camera over there?'

I have straight married friends that other friends think are gay, and I have gay friends who don't throw that vibe at all. I know there's a full range out there, but I feel that gay men who aren't flamboyant are underrepresented on-screen.

It's so much in me to want to keep experimenting all the time. It's just inherent. Therefore I keep reaching for instruments I don't particularly know how to play, and then I become excited.

I have a sentimental feeling for my very first cover I was on - it was 'Bazaar' Magazine.

I'm not coping very well with all the attention, if I'm honest.