You have the United States, and you have Mexico, and then you have this Mexican-American thing which is this third culture, which I like to call Aztlan.
The whole thing with recording is you have to know when to turn off the tape machine and just stop recording because you want to keep fixing, fixing, fixing, you know?
The music that I chose during my life, it wasn’t arbitrary. It was all in my family home when I was growing up. I never tried to record anything I hadn’t heard before the age of 10. Otherwise, I couldn’t do it authentically.
Singing with Aaron Neville, he pulled stuff out of my voice I never could have gotten, because if he’s providing XYZ, I have to put in ABC, and usually I don’t have to put in ABC.
Parkinson’s is very hard to diagnose. So when I finally went to a neurologist, and he said, ‘Oh, you have Parkinson’s disease,’ I was completely shocked.
In the Troubadour days, it was all those songwriters that I hung around with all the time, so I could get songs and find out what was going on. So we all knew each other, and we just carried each other’s word around.
I’ve never been happy with the quality of my work. I always felt as though my musicianship was lacking and that I should have worked harder at it when I was younger. As I sang and sang, I improved.
I’d go over to my grandmother’s house, and she’d be playing opera. They loved opera. Not only did they play it on the radio, but they played it on their piano. Everybody learned how to read music and how to play.
I got a couple of different contacts from publishing companies saying they’d be interested in a book about my work: not a kiss-and-tell book, which I specifically put in the contract. Just a book about my work and what I did.
I didn’t think I was a famous singer. I didn’t think I was a star or that I could make the waters part – just that singing was what I was going to do.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t sing – all I knew was that it was muscular or mechanical. Then, when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, I was finally given the reason. I now understand that no one can sing with Parkinson’s disease. No matter how hard you try. And in my case, I can’t sing a note.
I can’t really walk well. The muscles don’t get the electronic signals from my brain, not that there’s anything wrong with the muscles themselves. It’s just my brain.
For years, I’ve been interviewed, and they write what they thought I thought or what they thought I said. Sometimes it’s accurate, and often it isn’t.
As I got older, I got Parkinson’s disease, so I couldn’t sing at all. That’s what happened to me. I was singing at my best strength when I developed Parkinson’s. I think I’ve had it for quite a while.
The thing I like about singing duets is that I get things out of my voice I never get singing by myself.