Frankie Laine Quotes

((from an interview for the book "Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music") . . . if I had it to do over again, there is one thing I would change. I would make it (success) happen maybe ten years sooner. Ten years is a good stretch of scuffling. But I scuffled for 17 years before it happened and 17 is a bit much.

In my leaner days I failed many an audition because, I was told, I sounded "too black" . . . I`m certain the confusion was the direct result of the music that influenced me while I was developing my style. I guess I became the first of the so-called blue-eyed soul singers.

(in a 1987 interview) When people nowadays say that (Elvis Presley) was the first white guy to sound black, I have to shake my head; what can you do? At the time of "That`s My Desire", they were saying that I was the only white guy around who sounded black.