 |
Main >> Previous Updates >> June 2005 >> Article ID 8398
 Christina Aguilera on Etta James | Type: Magazine Article |
| | Christina Aguilera on Etta James | Oct 30, 2003 |
Christina Aguilera on Etta James.
When I was five or six, I was living in Japan, where my father was stationed in the Army. At that age, I wanted to be Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. She was so free when she sang. That's what I wanted - to be on that mountaintop, twirling around. For me, the soul singing started when I was seven or eight. My parents split, and my mom and I moved in with my grandma in Pennsylvania. We used to go up into the city to record stores where they would have all these records of true soul singers. There was Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, but Etta James was my favorite. She seemed so raw. You could hear all her emotions. She would go low. She would hit those hit notes. She hit them raw with a growl and an aggression. It wasn't sung so sweet; and to me, that's great.
Other songs from back in the day - not of course, written by the women who sang them but by a bunch of men who deal out what these women should be singing - can be appalling. It's just crazy what was acceptable. Prime example: Billie Holiday used to sing the song "Ain't Nobody's Business." Two of the best lines are "I'd rather my man would hit me then for him to jump up and quit me/Ain't nobody's business if I do" and "I swear I won't call no copper/If I'm beat up by my papa." But Etta came out, and she gave it to you raw. She was much more real than most.
It took guts to be Etta James. I hear she will still take a man from the audience and she'll put his head in her crotch. She just goes to that point where other women would be afraid to go. Society has to criticize women for being open with their sexuality. Etta should get all the props in the world for being able to be that strong and open.
Etta really inspired me. I had young girls who looked up to me when I put out my first record; but, of course, that was not an honest representation of what I felt. My album Stripped, is raw, emotionally real, kind of Etta has always been. To have people appreciate the raw, honest to me is what matters the most. And I will only make honest, real music from here on out. That's what Etta's always done. |
 Source: Rolling Stone | |
|
|
 |
|
|
| Username: | Guest |
| Position: | Unregistered Viewer |
|
|
ChristinaMultimedia is a non-profit
website. Costs to maintain the master server and other servers are very expensive. If
you use and enjoy this website and any other websites of CMM, it would be greatly appreciated if you can help out with our costs.
|
|
|
Total Online: 5
5 Guests, 0 Members |
|
|
|
|
Total Articles: 11578
Total Views: 9419714
Total Comments: 1600
Total Hits: 12983564
Total Unique Visits: 1707244
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Login
