Etta James

“Country music has the great stories.”

“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.”

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

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

“I took back my life.”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.”

“Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“It feels so good to be happy.”

“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.”

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