Etta James quotes
-
“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 -
“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 -
“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”
-- Etta JamesSource : Song: A Sunday Kind of Love, Album: At Last!
-
“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 -
-
“At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.”
-- Etta JamesSource : Song: At Last, Album: At Last!
-
“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.”
-- 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 -
“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!”
-- 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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“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.”
-- Etta James -
-
“It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.”
-- Etta James -
“The two things you can't fake are good food and good music”
-- Etta James -
“The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage.”
-- 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 JamesSource : "Etta James: 'I was like a punker ... I'd spit in a minute' - a classic interview from the vaults" by Cliff White, www.theguardian.com. January 24, 2012.
-
“People that can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.”
-- Etta JamesSource : "Etta James Dies at 73; Voice Behind ‘At Last’" by Peter Keepnews, www.nytimes.com. January 20, 2012.
-
“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.”
-- Etta James -
“In some ways, it's my rage that keeps me going,”
-- Etta JamesSource : Etta James, David Ritz (2003). “Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story”, p.264, Da Capo Press
-
-
“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.”
-- 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 -
“I'm not starry eyed, and I'm not money crazy.”
-- Etta James -
-
“I'm not a bourgeois person, never will be.”
-- Etta JamesSource : "Etta James: 'I was like a punker ... I'd spit in a minute' - a classic interview from the vaults" by Cliff White, www.theguardian.com. January 24, 2012.
-
“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.”
-- Etta James -
“Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude.”
-- Etta James -
-
“Once you lose the weight, you're really anxious to eat healthy.”
-- Etta James -
“It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.”
-- Etta James -
“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…”
-- Etta James -
“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.”
-- Etta James -
-
“I don't care who's playing. Even if it's my favorite artist, I'm probably not gonna go and see him.”
-- Etta James -
“To me, country music is like the blues, but it's something very hip and - I don't want to say commercial - but it's very worldly and good listening.”
-- 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 -
“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.”
-- Etta JamesSource : "Etta James' New Lease Of Life", www.sfgate.com. August 22, 2003.
-
-
“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 -
“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 -
“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.”
-- Etta James -
“A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.”
-- Etta James -
-
“I figured I could do 'It's A Man's Man's Man's World,' because I believe it's the truth.”
-- Etta James -
“All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.”
-- Etta James -
“Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person.”
-- Etta James -
-
“I like to shop, but I don't like to go out to dances.”
-- 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 -
“I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.”
-- Etta James -
“Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.”
-- Etta James -
-
“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.”
-- 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 -
“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.”
-- Etta James -
“My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.”
-- Etta James -
-
“My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy,”
-- Etta James -
“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.”
-- Etta James -
“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.”
-- Etta James -
“When I'm singing the blues, I'm singing life.”
-- Etta James -
-
“I am so happy that I am alive and can walk.”
-- Etta JamesSource : "Etta James' New Lease Of Life", www.sfgate.com. August 22, 2003.
-
“The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.”
-- Etta JamesSource : Etta James, David Ritz (2003). “Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story”, p.17, Da Capo Press
You may also like:
-
Aretha Franklin
Singer -
B. B. King
Musician -
Beyonce Knowles
Recording Artist -
Billie Holiday
Singer -
Chaka Khan
Singer-songwriter -
Christina Aguilera
Singer -
Chuck Berry
Guitarist -
Ella Fitzgerald
Vocalist -
Gladys Knight
Songwriter -
Little Walter
Musician -
Muddy Waters
Musician -
Nina Simone
Singer -
Otis Redding
Singer-songwriter -
Ray Charles
Singer-songwriter -
Sarah Vaughan
Singer -
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Guitarist -
Tina Turner
Singer -
Willie Dixon
Musician -
Wilson Pickett
Singer-songwriter -
Howlin' Wolf
Singer