Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Play
Jazz
Busy
Learned
Trouble
Getting
Fanatic
Wish
Fanatics
Mother
Tunes
Wanted
Piano

More quotes by Etta James

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Etta James
Image
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
Image
A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.
Etta James
Image
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
Etta James
Image
Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude.
Etta James
Image
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
Image
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
Image
All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.
Etta James
Image
I was originally like a punker, know what I mean, like the punks are today, I'd spit in a minute.
Etta James
Image
It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.
Etta James
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It feels so good to be happy.
Etta James
Image
Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person.
Etta James
Image
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.
Etta James
Image
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
Image
My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday.
Etta James
Image
When Malcolm X was assassinated I was working at the Apollo. They brought his body to the Unity Funeral Home, which was around the corner.
Etta James