Etta James Quotes

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.

The two things you can't fake are good food and good music

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

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.

At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.

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.

A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

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.

I want a Sunday kind of love A love to last past Saturday night And I’d like to know it’s more than love at first sight

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.

I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I'm the happiest I've ever been.

People that can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

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

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

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.

The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.

I’ve learned to live with rage. In some ways, it’s my rage that keeps me going. Without it, I would have been whipped long ago. With it, I got a lot more songs to sing.

It feels so good to be happy.

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

When I'm singing the blues, I'm singing life.

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.

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.

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

In some ways, it's my rage that keeps me going.

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.

My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

When Malcolm X was assassinated I was working at the Apollo. They brought his body to the Unity Funeral Home, which was around the corner.

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

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

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.

Country music has the great stories.

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

My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.

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

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

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.

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