When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you're talking about. Thank God I was ready for it.

I didn't even respect singers until I heard Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.

Give it up for Ray Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you, Ray Charles, for living.

I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me.

Ray Charles is a giant. He was one of my mentors. He would write arrangements in Braille, and translate it to me. At 14 and 16 we used to sit in Seattle on those rainy days and dream about what would happen.

God bless Ray Charles. It was such an honor to meet him and sing with him and actually just to watch him sing from just two feet away.