Etta James Quotes

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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

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

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.

You know the one with the big ears? Wait a minute, he ain't my president, he might be yours, he ain't my president. You know that woman he had singing for him, singing my song - she's gonna get her a- whipped. The great Beyoncé But I can't stand Beyoncé. She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol' president day singing my song that I've been singing forever.

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

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

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

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

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.

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.