Etta James Quotations

The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.

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.