Hi!

Certainly the appearance on the Ted Mack Amatuer Hour, which I won three times and then gained national exposure. That was one, and the other was meeting Randy Wood, the owner of Dot Records, who masterminded my recording career. Those two events were my big break.

I sure do. My first record was "Two Hearts, Two Kisses," and that made the top 10. But then I recorded "Ain't That a Shame," and it quickly went to no. 1. My feeling was, wow, this is what it feels like to be a hit recording artist, and I want more of this.

I voted about two weeks ago, because I expected to be out of town and as it turns out, I was, from early in the morning until now. I've met 9 presidents. My first was Eisenhower, then Truman, Carter, Johnson, Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Bush and Clinton. Everybody but JFK.

A toss-up between Sammy Davis. Jr. and Frank Sinatra. Sammy could do more things and do them very well, but for sheer dynamic presence, and dynamite wallop in his shows at his peak, it was Sinatra. He walked a tightrope, it seemed to me, always teetering above sort of a professional wipeout, daring himself continually to live up to his own image. And he always did it.

Definetly Elvis. He was my opening act in Cleveland, in the fall of 1955, just before his record of "Heartbreak Hotel" was released. When we appeared together, my second record, "Ain't That a Shame," was headed to no. 1. I was able to follow Elvis, but that was the first and only time. He took over the role of King of pop music for awhile. I was glad to be the Crown prince. Sinatra was very complimentary of me at that time. He called me the Great White Hope.

The spotaneity. The excitement of hearing a song, liking it and going into a studio, perhaps that very day. Recording all of the record with the background musicians and singers, in less than three hours, and perhaps having a hit that would be played on the radio in hours or days. Today, you have to plan six months ahead for the release of a record, even after you've finished recording it. Which is the case with my new heavy metal album, "Pat Boone in a Metal Mood." I finished recording that that album in July and MCA is releasing it in January. And that's very frustrating to me.

I liked it the other way.

No I never worked with Sinatra much. We became friends, and I visited his home and I play in his golf tournament, but I can't remember that we ever actually worked on anything together. I worked with Bing Crosby, though, who was really my idol.

I did get very tired of singing even my big hits after about 20 years and then one day in Japan it hit me that I was performing for 1000s of Japanese who could hardly understand a word I said, but were paying very high prices to hear me sing these songs. And I realized what a lucky guy I was. That people halfway around the world cared about me because of my music. And now I literally get goosebumps when I start singing one of those gold record songs for some new audience.

No, not the longest, but one of the longest. There were at least two others, maybe three, that were on the charts longer than "You Light Up My Life." Dinah Shore's "Buttons and Bows" and the Mills Bros.' "Gloworm," and maybe Whitney Houston and Boyz II Men have equaled, if not surpassed Debbie. But that puts her in very select company.

Hardly anything. I think the things that surprise me now is when people do the right thing when they don't have to, and when people, for example, return some money that they found, instead of keeping it. That is more unusual now than any crime or illness or addiction. And that's a sad commentary.

I did Will Rogers in the Will Rogers Follies for most of 1994, and I loved it, and I love Branson. I would go back in a flash in the right theater and with the right show.

So many. Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick Jr., Boyz II Men, Bonnie Raitt and now I have become a cautious fan of some of the metal guys, because I've recorded some of their music and I've come to appreciate their musicianship and showmanship. I'm talking megastars like Eddie Van Halen. His records are very entertaining and very musically dynamic.

I also like Alice Cooper, Metallica, as well as some of the great country artists like Chet Atkins, Vince Gill, Ricky Scaggs, Reba, Shania and then instrumentalists like Kenny G, George Benson and B.B. King. So you can see my tastes are pretty eclectic.

Calvin Cooldige. I hope I wasn't too late. No...I was chairman of Families for Dole, and obviously I feel a lot of mistakes were made, and I'm saying this not having heard any results, but it seemed to me the Dole campaign was woefully managed, because he really had a lot to offer the country and I do believe we need to set a much higher standard for our leaders to follow.

You've made my day. That's what my music was for.

I have 1000 stories, but I've not talked to or seen Erik for a couple of years. We made the movie in the very streets of Harlem, Brooklyn, the Bronx where Dave Wilkerson lived it. And the police would not even attempt to protect us. So it was an adventure every day and we had to depend upon God to protect us as we made the movie, as he had Wilkerson when he went in there with one kid and a trumpet to help the street gangs. I really think we made a terrific film.

I'm very proud that Debbie is looking after her four kids and husband and is a diligent momma and wife, but also, still performing, when she can find time. She just did Grease on Broadway for three months and has just done a guest starring role on a sitcom and now she's about to do a movie. She's only accepting work that allows her to be with her family most of the time.

Bing Crosby once wrote me out of the blue. He heard I was doing a TV series, and he wrote me to say that he wished me well, but if he were advising me, he'd say don't do it, because you can wear out your welcome pretty quickly on TV. But since you're doing it, let me repeat the advice of George M. Cohan. "Never stay on too long." He signed it, the above, gratis, Bing.

And later, when I met her, his secretary told me it was highly unusual for Bing to write someone he didn't know, and to offer advice. An I must say, I haven't always heeded his advice.

Extremely fond memories of State Fair. I got to know two great female screen stars in that movie, Ann-Margret and Alice Faye. I didn't realize it at the time, because I was too young to remember most of Alice Faye's movies, but she was one of the biggest female stars ever. And of course, Ann-Margret has become a giant in our day. And also, I loved work,ing with Bobby Darin

That question and comments make me very proud, because the answer to most of the question is yes. I was proud of the film, it was extremely successful, I was co-producer, and I'm still getting distribution of dividends from that movie, and though I did not know Bernie Hermann before that film, I came to know and greatly appreciate him and his talent and I agree with your assessment of his work in that film.

I was told that this film literally saved 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy. Their big movie at the time as Cleopatra, and it was sinking their ship. They were so horribly over budget that the bankers were about to foreclose. Journey was released and did so well immediatley that the bankers decided to stay with 20th a little longer, and they're still there.

I haven't been suponeod latekly. If Bob Dole is elected, I'll be back for the inaguartion.

I;m Christian,

My road musicians suggested this about five years ago, and I thought they were joking, because we all had a lot of laughs about the idea of my recording songs that had been hits by Metallica and Kiss and Black Sabbath. But my conductor, Dave Siebels got serious and told me there were reaklkly good songs in the metal genre that were only known to "metalheads." If we did them a different way, for example, with a big band approach, we might have something. So I asked him to make me a tape of some songs he thought we might do, and I loved what I heard. Songs by Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and Alice Cooper. And I saw that he was right. There were some tremendously good songs, and they were only known to a large, but separate segment of the music buying public. So we plunged in to come up with our own versions of these classics, and I think we have made the most exciting album of my 40 year career.

Look for it in January. "In a Metal Mood/No More Mr. Nice Guy." by Pat Boone.

The cover is very surprising me. We took pictures of me on a Harley, with a black vest, earrings, tattoos, a whole smorgasboard of either funny or dramatic pictures, and Im sure we'll see those in the ads and magazine covers, but the picture they chose for the cover, is a serious, candid, shot of me, just glancing at the camera. The expression fits the idea so well. But you do see a tattoo on my shoulder. Yet it's not threatening or bizarre, and I do look like I'm in a metal mood.

Of course. I do my own weekly radio show called The Pat Boone Show and I play the records of Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Wayne Wartson, Holy Soldier, Steven Curtis Chapman and all the current giants in contemporary gospel. I also do a weekly TV show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, presenting some of these same performers, doing their music and letting me interview them. On both shows, I always do at least one of my own songs.

So I am very involved, and proud and grateful that these shows are now available to about 3/4s of the world's populationm, every week.

I don't surf yet, but I am on-line. I have a website. I;'m doing some E-mail and just really getting my feet wet. I'm fascinated and a pretty good typist. I used to do about 75 words a minute, so I;m comfortable with the keyboard and that communication.

There is white on them, but they're not totally white. They're Nike's that are gray, green and white.

I don't have a particular message. It is an experience in discovery and delight at a potential new treasure trove of hit songs. They've already been hits, but there are millions of people like me who don't know anything about this music, and I think that I may serve a worthwhile function in introducing a large audience to some of this music.

I had that experience at the beginning of my career with RnB music, and as I learned about R&B and helped turn it into rock and roll, there were millions of other Americans making the same discovery, and I have a real feeling od deja vu about this, because when people hear this album, they're going to hear terrific musical quality and songs that are worthy of a wider audience.

I've done over 100 albums already....I;'d love to record to Chet Atkins and even proposed that to the head of MCA, where I am now, and he said that thought he thought it would be a great album, he wasn't sure he could get it played, because even country music is aiming all its products to the 18-30 generation, and they were having a terrible time getting even George Jones played on the air, and even Willie Nelson couldn't get airplay.

It would be a great irony if I took a metal detour and then came back and did an album with Chet. I would also love to do something with Boyz II Men.

I do take baths reguarly, even when I don't need them, and I've never tried to create an image. Even the Rolling Stone magazine, some years ago, sent some pretty good writers over to turn the rocks over in my life and see what worms crawled out, and they found to their surprise that whatever worms there were, I had already exposed in my books, and that I had no secrets, and so they put me on the cover and called me the Great White Buck.

They tipped their hat to me, because they said I had remained consisent over the entire rock era, and they couldn't think of anything else that had. So, for better or worse, what you see is what you get.

I am delighted to be part of this phenomeon, and I hope for an encore. Thank you and good night.