Menu

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Etta James Quotes

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

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

– 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

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

– 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

I like to shop, but I don’t like to go out to dances.

– Etta James

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

– Etta James

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

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

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

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

– 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

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

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

But even so, I still get nervous before I go onstage.

– 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 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

It feels so good to be happy.

– 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

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

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

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

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

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

– 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

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