I saw Ronnie Hawkins play near my hometown, Port Dover, Ontario, and I saw him play there on New Year's Eve and the following spring I booked myself to be his opening act on maybe five shows, and he hired me after the first night.

Diana Ross saw me on Merv Griffin and hired me to be her opening act.

When I used to play nightclubs, you had to play Top 40 or favorite oldies that maybe people could relate to.

Country artists, I met a lot of them when I was five, six years old. I had an uncle who was a country and western singer and I met Lefty Frizzell when I was five or six years old in those shows that would come through Toronto from Nashville.

When I was a kid a growing up in Ontario, Canada, Lake Erie was so polluted, I never thought it would ever, EVER be turned around where they could start cleaning it out in my lifetime!

My first payback to society in life, was The Dolphin Project.