If you’re African American, you are forced into making different choices, in a lot of cases, than you are as a white person.

I have to say I have never been comfortable with somebody else telling me what to do – in any way.

Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.

I have an English family and I’ve lived in England for years.

Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.

Art is a continuum.

I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I’m not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it’s cool.

If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don’t have their assistants and entourage, it’s funny to see what happens.

The late 20th century had just enough communication abilities to allow superstar-ness and communality to happen. It was a musical renaissance that rivals the visual one that happened in the 1400s.

In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.

Chronic Lyme causes arthritis, heart problems, stroke – even death.

I’m constantly on my toes and re-examining my own music.

I’d like to see more crossover between white and black music. That’s something I’ve been advocating for years.

To write a good song, an artist has to drawn from reality. There has to be some spark from realism that communicates a real feeling to someone else. You have to be real. Or you...

As I got older, my voice got better.

I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.

In the early ’70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.

I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.

My fan base is really expanding into an inter-generational thing – it’s what every artist probably hopes for.

I don’t like showboating. I was never a fan of showing off.

I’m not a big fan of any video, especially my own. In a word, I hated the Hall & Oates videos.

I’m a born collaborator. This is what I was born to do, really.

If you are a superstar, or whatever you want to call yourself, a person who’s had outrageous success, and you decide to go indie and tell the record companies to screw themselves? That takes a...

Having a solo career is a funny thing.

I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I’m fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working...

I always say the same thing – believe in what you do, do it, and don’t veer away from the truth of it.

I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And...

Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.

I’ve got a sense of humor. I’m a funny guy.

I’m used to the egos in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.

I’m always interested in what fans think.

If you work hard and you’re good, you can build something for yourself.

I don’t really strain my voice.

I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I’ve been a...

Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence...

I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.

Nobody really cares about what other people think anymore; they’re all about themselves.

As a singer, I float around. I’m kind of scatty, bouncing around a lot. I try to adapt to what’s going on around me in the song and the arrangement.

I’ve been traveling around the world forever.

Who knows what the right time to get married is?

Most artists try to avoid cliches, but it’s pretty hard to avoid them if you yourself end up being one.

I had the idea of ‘Live From Daryl’s House’ way before I contracted Lyme disease.

I’m just about the best singer I know, and it’s time for everybody to say that. I have total facility with my voice. And for some weird reason, critics don’t talk about it.

I was always an introvert as a kid. Then, when I first kind of came out as a human being, I used to be one of those guys who’d go nuts on the dance floor,...

Some artists are nervous – most of them are, to tell you the truth, and they have different ways of exhibiting that. Some of them are boisterous, some are really quiet.

Obscurity is just obscurity. There’s no romance in obscurity.