Of course, the kids who had never heard of a person called Ben E. King were then aware of the name associated with the song. That gave a tremendous lift to me as an artist.

It never dawned on me at any particular time of my life that people are paid tremendous money to sing.

He was a manager, one of the singers, I guess talent coordinator for the local talent in Harlem. His name was Lover Patterson. He was living right across the street from where my dad had his restaurant. I guess he saw a lot of kids come in, a lot of my buddies.

The movie is actually from a book by Stephen King called The Body. When they were gonna put it to a motion picture, they found the story was a bit too strong for the title The Body, based on a young kid's movie. It would be too heavy.

I heard my name associated with the Peter Pan syndrome more than once. But really, what's so wrong with Peter Pan? Peter Pan flies. He is a metaphor for dreams and faith.

You were able to sing something they related to instantly, because it was part of what you felt. It was part of what you had already traveled through. It's part of the people you were associating with daily. It was all of that.