Etta James Quotes
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I was originally like a punker, know what I mean, like the punks are today, I'd spit in a minute.
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I'm not starry eyed, and I'm not money crazy.
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I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.
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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.
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The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.
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At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.
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A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.
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In some ways, it's my rage that keeps me going.
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It feels so good to be happy.
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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.
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I figured I could do "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World" because I believe it's the truth.
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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.
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Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.
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My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude.
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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.
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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.
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Country music has the great stories.
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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.
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It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.
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I am so happy that I am alive and can walk.
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All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.
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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.
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The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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