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

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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.
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I like to shop, but I don't like to go out to dances.
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I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I'm the happiest I've ever been.
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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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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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It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.
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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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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?
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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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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.
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It feels so good to be happy.
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Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person.
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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.
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A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.
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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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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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Even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude.
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