 At the same time I was being given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. |
| It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them. |
| I talked to the record company about what I had in mind. They said they wanted something lush. I figured the best thing to do was let them hear what I had in mind. |
| I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing. |
| Most of the songs I sing have that blues feeling in it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't. |
| A few years ago, I thought, I'll never make it. I started to go to the doctor to help me lose weight. |
| 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. |
| 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! |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| I don't care who's playing. Even if it's my favorite artist, I'm probably not gonna go and see him. |
| The only time that I am really truly happy - when I feel at my best - is when I'm on the stage. |
| 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. |
| Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person. |
| Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang. |
| I like to shop, but I don't like to go out to dances. |
| And as I started reaching deeper I realized that most of the blues of that day was done by men. Women just didn't have the nerve. |
| They said that Etta James is still vulgar. I said, Oh, how dare them say I'm still vulgar. I'm vulgar because I dance in the chair. What would they want me to do? Want me to just be still or something like that? I've got to do something. |
| 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. |
| I am so happy that I am alive and can walk. |
