Etta James Quotes - Page 2

My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy.

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.

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!

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.

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.

I figured I could do "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World" because I believe it's the truth.

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

It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.

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.

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

I was a sloppy kid, wanted to be just wild.

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

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.

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.

It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.

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'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?

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

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.

You know, YOUR President, the one with the big ears-he ain't my President - had that woman singing for him at his Inauguration. She's going to get her [expletive] whooped. How dare Beyonce sing MY song that I been singing forever. Now I'm going to sing it for y'all.

When Malcolm X was assassinated I was working at the Apollo. They brought his body to the Unity Funeral Home, which was around the corner.

I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.

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

Country music has the great stories.