I took back my life.
I don't care who's playing. Even if it's my favorite artist, I'm probably not gonna go and see him.
Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.
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.
The only time that I am really truly happy - when I feel at my best - is when I'm on the stage.
It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.
A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.
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.
I'm not starry eyed, and I'm not money crazy.
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.
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'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.
I am so happy that I am alive and can walk.
It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.
But even so, I still get nervous before I go onstage.
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 figured I could do 'It's A Man's Man's Man's World', because I believe it's the truth.
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.
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.
