Ms. LOVE: That's a really great feeling for all of us that sing and that we--the gift--'cause I say that our gift is a gift from God, and surely Luther's gift was a gift from God, and he was a very good friend of mine.
His feelings for his parents also emerge in songs like "123 Goodbye, " which includes the line "I love you more in death than I ever could in life, " though Perkins prefers to sing about these thoughts rather than talk about them.
The first film, about a high school basketball star who falls in love with a girl and is torn between his on-court duties and his secret yearning to sing duets with her, was seen by 170 million people around the world.