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Etta James Quotes - IQDb - Internet Quotes Database

Quotes from Etta James


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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.


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.


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.


My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.


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


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.


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


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


It feels so good to be happy.


I sing the songs that people need to hear.


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


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.


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


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.


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 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.


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?


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.


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.


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