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.

People always say 'Etta, you know what your problem is? You're neither fish nor fowl. There is no place to rack you.' When I would go in a record shop, you might find one or two records by me in different stacks.

To me, country music is like the blues, but it's something very hip and - I don't want to say commercial - but it's very worldly and good listening.

My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy.

The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.

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

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.