I used to be really nervous when I sang. Like when I was a kid starting young 18 and 19 and my dad really had to sort of push me to start singing in front of people. Ever since I got out there and really started doing it the only thing I've ever tried to do is just sort of is be myself you know never put on a voice. Sing naturally.

People who have not done their research on me do not know that I am European born in Copenhagen Denmark to an Italian father from Napoli and a mother from Alabama who was singing opera and went to Europe met my dad fell in love and then moved back to Rome where I was raised between Rome and Hamburg.

The cool wind blew in my face and all at once I felt as if I had shed dullness from myself. Before me lay a long gray line with a black mark down the center. The birds were singing. It was spring.

Don't get me wrong magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.

That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in your face. After you got the groove you were just singing the hooks because you thought it was cool.

Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place which is different than me singing the blues where I can sing 'Oh baby ' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz you better leave that space open or put in something real cool.

Playing and singing at the same time is pretty cool but sometimes it's difficult to know when you can just really let go a bit because you've got to get back to bloody microphone and sing some stuff.

I've never believed in singing about Satan and thinking he's cool because he's not.

I once sang 'Summer Nights ' from 'Grease ' at a bar in Melbourne with John Travolta who's a good friend of mine. He looked cool singing the part of Danny - sitting in an armchair smoking a cigar - while I got stuck playing Sandy.

Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people don't understand the language that you're singing in they still know good music when they hear it.

I sing both in my shower and in my car mostly in my car because I have this weird thing - whenever I'm singing to the radio - my friends kind of hate it - but I pick out the harmonies in my head and I'm singing the harmonies to the tracks and I'm jamming it out.

When I'm in the car and somebody comes on the radio singing the high notes I try to sing along.

I'm a car singer in fact sometimes I pretend to take my dog out for a walk and I'll just drive him around and start singin'.

I love singin' in the car it just makes me feel good.

Like all soul singers I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.

I always loved music. You know my parents said I started singing when I was 4 in the car.

I don't want a flashy car just something that would allow me to stop using the Tube. And it would be good not to have to rely on my mum all the time particularly when I have to listen to her singing in her car.

When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always wanted to be a singer.

I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom's family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car - it was the late sixties - and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.

I get uncomfortable when people give me presents and watch me open them. I don't have birthday parties because the idea of a group of people singing and looking at me while I'm blowing out candles gives me hives.

The only thing better than singing is more singing.

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.'

The first show I ever did singing and dancing was 'Beauty and the Beast.' I was playing Gaston. Gaston has red tights knee high boots and it's very physical. I had headaches every day for two months.

It's so amazing standing on the corner -this happened in Washington D.C. - and somebody comes by in a Cadillac and you hear 'Manic Monday' on the radio and you don't even know this person and they're listening to it and singing along with it. Wow! Blows your mind.