Etta James

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”