Quotes By Etta James

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared 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 like to shop, but I don't like to go out to dances.

It feels so good to be happy.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 sing the songs that people need to hear.

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

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.

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.