Quote

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

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Etta James
Age: 73 †
Born: 1938
Born: January 25
Died: 2012
Died: January 20
Jazz Musician
Musician
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
LA
California
Jamesetta Hawkins
Miss Peaches
Littles
Couldn
Wanted
Waiting
Smokin
Little
Year
Cigarette
Years
Five
Lady
People
Church
Grown
Girl
Performing
Used
Sing
Young
Wait

More quotes by Etta James

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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
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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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I'm not starry eyed, and I'm not money crazy.
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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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It feels so good to be happy.
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I was a sloppy kid, wanted to be just wild.
Etta James
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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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It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.
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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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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
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All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.
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Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person.
Etta James
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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
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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.
Etta James
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My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy.
Etta James
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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
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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
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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.
Etta James
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Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude.
Etta James
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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