I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.

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.

I sing the songs that people need to hear.

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.

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.

Now I can stand up on the stage again like I used to after five years of sitting down while I sang.

It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.

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

But even so, I still get nervous before I go onstage.

At the same time I was being given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy.

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.

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.

I figured I could do It's A Man's Man's Man's World, because I believe it's the truth.

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.

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.

That's where it begins and ends for me and these songs were the ones that touched me the deepest. It was like I was laying hold of some part of me that I didn't even know was there until I let it out.

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.

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!

I like to shop, but I don't like to go out to dances.

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

Bobby Womack is always very real, both with his music and as a person.

I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.

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.

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?

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.

I am so happy that I am alive and can walk.

I don't care who's playing. Even if it's my favorite artist, I'm probably not gonna go and see him.

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.

It feels so good to be happy.

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.

We all respect sincerity in our friends and acquaintances, but Hollywood is willing to pay for it.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

I've always thought John Travolta is one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever produced.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

I remember having to take detours around the Hollywood sign to avoid having to see this grotesque poster of myself on Sunset Boulevard.

Hollywood is kind of a bad world.

It's so crazy in Hollywood.

I don't think I ever understood Hollywood.

I came across awful characters when I got some kind of status and came to Hollywood. Then you have directors trying to sleep with you, assuming that you will do things because of the way you dress.

Hollywood is sexist and age-ist, and that covers all the bases, I guess.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Hollywood today is all about being consistent. All thinking in mainstream film business takes place in one box.

Everyone is treating it like a Hollywood story. In Madison, it's a neighborhood story.

Hollywood is what you make it; you have to choose company with care because you become what they are.