"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."
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Quote collection
Etta James quotes (page 1 of 3)
58 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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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"The two things you can't fake are good food and good music"
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"All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore."
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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."
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"At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song."
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"I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture."
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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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"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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"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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"You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them."
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"You know the one with the big ears? Wait a minute, he ain't my president, he might be yours, he ain't my president. You know that woman he had singing for him, singing my song - she's gonna get her a- whipped. The great Beyoncé But I can't stand Beyoncé. She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol' president day singing my song that I've been singing forever."
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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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"People that can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies."
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"I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing."
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"The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage."
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"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."
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"I’ve learned to live with rage. In some ways, it’s my rage that keeps me going. Without it, I would have been whipped long ago. With it, I got a lot more songs to sing."
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"It feels so good to be happy."
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"The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul."
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