But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do.
The secret was to just be cool, stay in God's graces, and work it out.
My manager was Buddy Glee, who put me together with Mike Curb, and was basically the idea to bring some soul to the label and bring something different to the label besides the Hank Williams situation.
I didn't do the marching down the streets, jumping in front of the lines and holding hands... that wasn't me.
We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.
I didn't need to borrow money from the record company, because if I had my own publishing company, and I had my own writers, I'd have enough to get and do whatever I wanted to do.
I walked out of the Chinese restaurant with a fat check, a record deal, and a box of shrimp egg foo yung!
