At The Orleans this weekend, singer Etta James will celebrate her upcoming 68th birthday -- and the release of a new "Definitive Collection" CD that traces her musical roots from rock to blues to jazz.

It takes some people decades to find their destiny. Etta James had it figured out when she was in diapers.

That was more than six decades ago -- James will celebrate her 68th birthday Wednesday -- but the legendary singer still pursues her bluesy muse, performing tonight through Sunday at The Orleans.

"My mom said I was trying to sing when I was a little baby in her arms," James recalls during a telephone interview from her Southern California home, her husky contralto infusing her words with an unmistakable lilt.

Born Jamesetta Hawkins in 1938, James officially started singing at 5, in the gospel choir of her Los Angeles church.

"Back in those days, I didn't have a choice" about singing, she says. But she always knew she would become a performer "because I was always a show-off."

James remembers that, as a little girl, her grandfather would "get me up out of bed" to perform for friends playing cards at their home.

" 'You got to sing for my friends tonight,' " her grandfather would tell James, who notes, "He was so proud of me. I was embarrassed, but he was proud."

These days, James doesn't embarrass so easily.

After a career that has encompassed blues, jazz, rock and pop (plus enough personal drama, from heartaches to heroin addiction, to inspire her searing autobiography, "Rage to Survive" ), James takes to the stage with raucous energy.

And Las Vegas remains one of her favorite venues.

She first performed in Glitter City during the '50s and recalls the glory days of the Moulin Rouge and "the Louisiana clubs" that catered to black audiences during a segregated era.

"I was so proud when I started to go to Vegas," James recalls, noting her concerns that she would be "too young and inexperienced to know how to feed a (casino) crowd. They're drinking and gambling -- you gotta sing, and they're gonna be busy with the one-arm bandits. But I realized, it was really fun."

It still is, James says, recalling her most recent Vegas gig at the Hilton.

"The last time I was there, it got real rowdy," she says. "I think I liked it."

After the briefest of pauses, James displays her exquisite timing and corrects herself: "I know I liked it.

That saucy, risquè edge has been a James trademark since her very first chart hit: 1955's "Roll With Me Henry," an "answer" song to Hank Ballard's "Work With Me Annie," which was originally released as "The Wallflower" because of its suggestive title.

It's the leadoff cut on "The Definitive Collection: Etta James," a just-issued greatest hits compilation that includes rockers ("Good Rockin' " and "W-O-M-A-N"), pop ballads ("At Last," "A Sunday Kind of Love"), soulful R&B hits (from 1967's "Tell Mama" to 1989's "Whatever Gets You Through the Night"), jazz (the Gershwin standard "The Man I Love," from James' "Mystery Lady: The Songs of Billie Holiday") and, inevitably, blues ("The Sky Is Crying," from the 2004 album "Blues to the Bone").

As a "definitive" collection, the CD encompasses James' wide-ranging musical influences.

"People always ask me, 'Are you blues or jazz?' " James says. Her response: "Who cares?"

Although she describes the blues as "probably my birthmark," James also developed an early affinity for lush pop ballads -- exemplified by her trademark version of "At Last."

When James began her career with lively rock 'n' roll rousers, her mother suggested listening to such smooth vocalists as Frank Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole. And while her mother was at work, James would listen to records, after a stern warning from her mother not to " 'play that gut-bucket music on my hi-fi,' " James remembers, chuckling.

Naturally, as soon as her mother left for work, that's exactly the kind of music she cranked up.

One day, James played Guitar Slim's "The Things That I Used to Do" so loud that a neighbor heard -- and reported to her mother than her daughter was defying her orders against "rotgut, lowdown blues."

Then again, those "rotgut, lowdown blues" tunes don't seem to have hurt James' career. Not with a list of honors that includes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and 12 W.C. Handy Awards, the blues industry's highest honor.

With such credentials, it's no wonder director Martin Scorsese asked James to participate in his PBS documentary series "The Blues."

The California native declined, citing the midwinter shoot as "just too cold for this lady." But that didn't stop her from inviting Scorsese to pen liner notes for her "Blues to the Bone" anyway.

Clearly, there were no hard feelings, because Scorsese's written tribute likens his first hearing of James' "At Last" to "taking a ride up to the stars."

Decades later, "Etta James' voice is just as commanding as it was when she was young, but it's different -- deeper, tougher," Scorsese writes. "How could it not be? That's what life can do to you."

These days, as always, James' life comes through in her music.

"I love to feel the music," she says. And "if you can entertain people, that's what's fun."

Part of that fun is letting it all hang out, James adds. After all, "I'm the lady who does the booty dance."

Mostly, however, she's the lady who sings from her gut -- and her soul.

"People sometimes ask, 'Hey, Miss James, how do you get soul?' " she says. She always answers them by reassuring them, "You got soul."

And when they ask, " 'Why does your soul show and mine don't?' " James has a ready answer.

"If you sing, if you play an instrument, if you paint a picture, if you write a poem, it comes out," she says.

But in James' case, "I sing -- it comes out that way."