Quotes By Etta James

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

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

My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.

The only time that I am really truly happy - when I feel at my best - is when I'm on the stage.

Country music has the great stories.

When I'm performing for the people, I am me, then. I am that little girl who, when she was five years old, used to sing at church. Or I'm that 15-year-old young lady who wanted to be grown and wanted to sing and couldn't wait to be smokin' a cigarette, you know?

A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.

All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.

I'm not a bourgeois person, never will be.

People always say 'Etta, you know what your problem is? You're neither fish nor fowl. There is no place to rack you.' When I would go in a record shop, you might find one or two records by me in different stacks.

Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, 'Oh, baby,' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool.

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.

Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't.

To me, country music is like the blues, but it's something very hip and - I don't want to say commercial - but it's very worldly and good listening.

Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person.

I talked to the record company about what I had in mind. They said they wanted something lush. I figured the best thing to do was let them hear what I had in mind.

I figured I could do 'It's A Man's Man's Man's World', because I believe it's the truth.

See, I don't like places where people can't dance - don't like clubs or theatres where a bunch of bourgeois people sit around tip, tip, tipping their fingers.

It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.

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.