Back when I was working with the Stones and with Joe Cocker and Neil Young and Neil Diamond and all of those - 'the boys,' I call them - it was fun.

I was signed to A&M, I was signed to Lou Adler, who had a company within a company, which was A&M Records, and everything - James Taylor, Rita Coolidge, Carole King - I worked on all of that stuff.

I knew how to sing in choirs and sing in church, but I didn't know how to sing in a studio. That's what Darlene and the Blossoms taught me to do - to be a studio singer.

I got put out of my church choir because my pastor said, 'We can't have baby sister singing the blues and coming in here and singing on Sunday morning.'

I started with Bobby Darin. He signed me to Capitol when I was 15. I was 14, getting ready to be 15. Then the next encounter I had was with I think Peggy Lee. I sang background with The Blossoms with Darlene Love.

Oh boy, I grew up hearing Sam Cooke, The Soul Stirrers, Mahalia Jackson, sitting on Mahalia Jackson's lap in my dad's church.

When I left the work world, I started designing my dream house. I dived into architecture and bought seven vacant lots. My plan was to build one house, move in, and build the next. If the next was better, I'd move in and sell the previous one - so on and so forth.

My private work is touched by this destiny of understanding that architecture and engineering have a social character and can serve the community.

When I work on sculpture, I don't have to worry about function. When I work on a piece of architecture, I must think about function all the time.

Barcelona is a beautiful city. I love the buildings and the architecture and always enjoy being close to that. It makes sense as an art person to work in places like that, it always feels nice and creative.

I've always been a good student, made good enough grades to do well, and enjoyed a lot of different subjects. It wasn't until I went to architecture school, though, that I really loved school work.

I never called my work an 'art'. It's part of show business, the business of building entertainment.