Cab Calloway

“Hi-de-ho.”

“I'm not a jazz singer. I'm a 'hi-de-ho' man.”

“Everybody has a gimmick. That's what makes them a star.”

“My mother didn't want me to be a musician. She wanted me to be a lawyer. But I wanted to be a singer.”

“My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it, was all for my audience.”

“No matter what you do, if you're trying to make a movie or a record, you've got to entertain the people.”

“That 'hi-de-ho' was my trademark. It was my whole life.”

“Scat singing is a vocal improvisation with wordless phrases, nonsense syllables or without words at all.”

“When I'm on the stage, my mission is to get the audience to have a good time. That's all I'm thinking about.”

“I was raised in a middle-class family. I'm a Baltimore boy. Not a ghetto boy.”

“A dictionary would have been a big help. But that's life. You write what you know.”

“I started singing in the choir in church.”