I saw ‘Mahogany’ and ‘Lady Sings the Blues’ when I was little and thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’

As a comedian, you’re kind of like a blues musician; you have to live a little bit.

There’s something lyrical about an eternal truth. It’s a graceful riff. A free-flowing melody. Light and airy, it floats all around you. And when it lands on your ears, when you hear it for the...

In the blues, it just takes so long for us to get recognized.

…I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject...

I used to be a great blues singer.