Quotes By Etta James

I like to shop, but I don't like to go out to dances.

Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.

I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.

It feels so good to be happy.

That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me that I didn't even know was there until I let it out.

I took back my life.

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them.

What happens is, when I perform, I'm somewhere else. I go back in time and get in touch with who I really am. I forget my troubles, my worries.

I'm not starry eyed, and I'm not money crazy.

My mother always wanted me to be glamorous. When I thought about that, it really fired me up, and once I lost all those pounds, I started to feel really good about myself.

This is an album of songs that I've always loved, tunes that I heard. For the first time in 53 years of recording, I really had control over an entire album, start to finish.

I was originally like a punker, know what I mean, like the punks are today, I'd spit in a minute.

Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together.I would hear him sing every night.

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

I was a sloppy kid, wanted to be just wild.

They said that Etta James is still vulgar. I said, Oh, how dare them say I'm still vulgar. I'm vulgar because I dance in the chair. What would they want me to do? Want me to just be still or something like that? I've got to do something.

Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude.

When I sing for myself, I probably sing for anyone who has any kind of hurt, any kind of bad feelings, good feelings, ups and downs, highs and lows, that kind of thing.

It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.

And as I started reaching deeper I realized that most of the blues of that day was done by men. Women just didn't have the nerve.

When I look out at the people and they look at me and they're smiling, then I know that I'm loved. That is the time when I have no worries, no problems.

But even so, I still get nervous before I go onstage.

Once you lose the weight, you're really anxious to eat healthy.

I really turned into, you know, the real street kid. I was kind of like a runaway, but I had a mother, you know what I mean, and I had a place to stay.

My mother always told me, even if a song has been done a thousand times, you can still bring something of your own to it. I'd like to think I did that.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared about.

Most of the songs I sing, they have that blue feeling to it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about.

My mother was a jazz fanatic and she wanted me to play the piano so I could play jazz tunes. I wish I had learned but I was too busy getting into trouble!

I am so happy that I am alive and can walk.

I don't care who's playing. Even if it's my favorite artist, I'm probably not gonna go and see him.