There's two times of year for me: Football season, and waiting for football season.

I'm lucky my wife is a strong woman. She's one of the stronger people I've ever met. It's hard for me to be away, but I know my home life is fine because my wife is there.

I don't think I get the respect as a singer. With this record, I wanted to bring respect to my band.

I expect to make a career out of country music.

I have major respect for Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood and Sugarland. They are wonderful. They're superstars in the music business.

I just wanted to go out and make a record that I've always wanted to make since I was a kid.

I work hard to let my wife know how much I love her. I try to do that every day.

I've known Tiger since he was 18. Tiger is a great guy. I am so happy for him right now.

It's hard to be married to me, and it was a lot harder when I was younger!

My family lives a pretty normal life.

Ray Charles has always been a big part of my life.

We went to church every Sunday. When I was a kid, the only time I sang was around my family.

When I was in high school, I read all of Neil Simon's plays.

I think people who go out and tell you how much they're gonna change things are the people who end up being just another whatever. I'm never trying to change anything. That's not for me.

I'm a kid who grew up in an all African-American neighborhood and got into schools and aspired to just be me, and didn't worry about labels or anything. Just wanted to be a success at what I did.

It was important to me to find a label that wouldn't back out after a first single. Everyone's so used to hearing me with Hootie, they're going to be skeptical.

Remember the Stax label and how if you liked one record, you liked all the others as well? You don't talk to a lot of people who tell you how much they love their record label. I don't care how many records they sell.

We can't thank Dave enough. He could call me if my wife was about to have a baby and tell me he needed tonight for his show and I'd find some way to get her to let me head to New York.

We got to do a few things with President Clinton. To be invited to Washington again to play with Ashanti and all those other cool people there in front of President Bush and the rest of the world feels awesome. I'm really looking forward to going.

We raised almost 2 million dollars at the last golf tournament that can be used for minority scholarships and Junior Golf programs. The payoff for the work we do is so much more valuable than the work we actually do for it.