My dad was always my manager as far as I was concerned, even when I had another manager. At times he let me go with someone else who he thought could take me to another level when he couldn’t, and he was right. But they were in it for another reason. He was in it because he wanted to see me succeed no matter what, and he made decisions based on being a dad as opposed to a manager.

For all my life, from the beginning of my career, you know, I was a kid so it was not too much I didn't know about as far as the ways of the world and the birds and the bees and that kind of thing, but my dad had been such a teacher, a coach if you will to make -- he said, you are a kid, first of all, and a woman, second of all. You got to be convincing. People aren't going to believe you've been through the things you're singing about. You got to be extra good. And he would make me sing it over and over and over again and I'd read to him and he'd make me read it over and put feeling in it, he'd say like Hank Williams put in there, you know, he said put it in there like Woodbury soap won't wash it off. And so I learned that from an early age to put everything I had into it.

At that point, when things first start happening, you don't get money right away. Money doesn’t come until much later. So you start building your reputation and looking for pennies to keep things together.

I think that the intervention process is a good process for most people, but for me, it just looked like a bunch of my friends trying to get back at me and sit around taking jabs at me, you know, when I couldn't defend myself.

Someone once said to me, "You're a part of the old and a part of the new, but did you ever think that you might be the bridge between the two?" Well, I feel like a bridge. And no longer over troubled water.

You know, as any parent will say, you know, life happens. Do you the best you can. You work -- it's a day at a time process. I have an unending desire to be better and make myself a better person.

When you’re a kid you're not afraid of much, and you're resilient. There’s more pressure on an adult. I don't think I could go through today what I went through back then.