Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

It feels so good to be happy.

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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

Etta James
Etta James

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

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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?

Etta James
Etta James

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

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

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

Etta James
Etta James

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.

Etta James
Etta James

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

Etta James
Etta James

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!