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that we both worked so closely with harmolodic musicians when we came to New York City. He
was with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson for years. I’m still working with guitarist James

“Blood” Ulmer. But that’s another story.

And then there was church. Andre Crouch, Walter and Edwin Hawkins and Tremaine Hawkins
were extremely important to me, but then again, so were The Mighty Clouds of Joy. That fusion of
gospel and soul was radical at the time. People thought it was heresy. And now, not including those
songs in a church service is unthinkable.

LL: When did you realize that you could sing?

QE: Singing was always a part of me, like everything else that I am. When I was a little kid, I
thought everybody sang all day in church. So, it wasn’t ever a moment when I thought, wow I can

sing. It was more of a slow realization over time that singing was something other people couldn’t
do, and the big wow was that some people never ever
sang, and never wanted to even try. Or that some
people were legitimately tone deaf and wouldn’t stop
singing because they couldn’t hear what they really
sounded like. Or they didn’t care what they sounded
like.

I didn’t really take singing that seriously until well after

I relocated to New York City from Austin, Texas. I mean,
don’t get me wrong, I took it seriously. I sang my butt
off every chance I got. I took care of my voice, and I
didn’t trash my body so I could sing a clear tone
whenever I wanted. The thing is, I didn’t consider
myself to be a singer. Everybody sang better than me,
everybody could sight-read better than me, everybody

had all this stuff vocally going on that was light years away from whatever I was doing. And they
still do. Lots of trills, lots of melisma, lots of what I call vocal gymnastics. So, I may have said that I
was a singer but really, I was an actor. And I still am. Singing was another tool in my actor’s
toolbox that I kept well-honed in case I got cast in a musical or a play that had music in it. I didn’t
sing because I had this burning need to sing or to make art. I sang because the job required it. And
I was grateful to God that I could do it well. Later I sang because I couldn’t find any work as an
actor. I was singing with wedding bands, swing bands, hot jazz bands, big bands. Pretty much
bopping my way through popular music from every decade to pay the rent. And as it turns out,
singing all that music really informs what I do now. Who knew?

Writing lyrics, composing music, playing instruments, assembling bands, and working as a
bandleader, producing records, and doing the hard work of self-releasing them -- absolutely none
of that stuff was anything that I wanted to do. I did those things because once the ball started
rolling, I would get to the end of my rope, and I had to learn another skill all over again if I wanted
to move forward. It all started simply enough. I wrote lyrics and thought, well what about the
melody? So, I became a topliner and then I thought, why don’t I just write the song? And then I
write the lyrics and the music, and I want to record what I’ve done, and I don’t have any money to
pay someone to produce it so I produce it. And once I find and assemble the musicians, find the

recording studio and the engineer, and record it and get it mixed and mastered, well -- I have to
put it out there into the world, right? So, I start my label and do exactly that. I want to do it right,
so I hire a publicist and radio promoter, I find a booking agent -- and here we are.