98 Quotes by Etta James

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.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that’s all I cared about.

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.

The only time that I am really truly happy – when I feel at my best – is when I’m on the stage.

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.

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.

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.

A few years ago, I thought, I’ll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight.

It’s not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it’s about paying tribute to them.