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.

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.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

I took Laura on a trip once where we followed the Immigrant Trail for about six hundred miles. She really learned a lesson. People forget too often how it was back then.

My biggest loss was the Olympics. I just can't forget losing. I never will.

Yes, but don't forget I also have the luxury of the worlds finest band when it gets lonely.

It's part of the calling to at least do a few songs in the show that give people some hope. There's so much hurt in this world and... music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

Countries under foreign command quickly forget their history, their past, their tradition, their national symbols, their way of living, often their own literary language.

Forget the lottery. Bet on yourself instead.

Don't forget that the only two things people read in a story are the first and last sentences. Give them blood in the eye on the first one.

It makes me forget that I'm not going to be a major star and lead female in films whether it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five or in the future.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

Sometimes songwriters and singers forget that. They get a melody in their head and the notes will take precedence, so that they wind up forcing a word onto a melody. It doesn't ring true.

Seeking to forget makes exile all the longer; the secret of redemption lies in remembrance.

I think we typically, as Northerners, stereotype what the South is in so many negative ways. We kind of forget all the beautiful things that they contribute to make this country a country.

I must be careful not to get trapped in the past. That's why I tend to forget my songs.

When it's your chance to step up to the plate, just hit it out of the park, and everybody will forget about everything that came before.

I do not bring forgiveness with me, nor forgetfulness. The only ones who can forgive are dead; the living have no right to forget.

My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.