Etta James: Mystery lady
Tonya Parker Morrison
March 06, 2007
It wasn't easy becoming a legend, says Riverside's legendary blues singer.
As legends go, Etta James is still special enough to be called unique.
She succeeded in a rough-and-tumble male-dominated business and endured a hard-knock life that took a huge personal toll, yet managed to churn out some of the meanest rhythm and blues (and some of the tenderest soul and jazz) of any female artist of the last several decades.
She has plowed past a mountain of tragedy -- including drug addiction, financial woes and abusive men -- but through the ups and downs kept her career alive, her sanity intact and her life in perspective. For James, the road just doesn't travel the same without a few bumps.
"I don't dwell on things like that, the past," the woman known as "Miss Peaches," says sharply about the troubles in her past. "It's not where I wanna be, you know? There's too much good that I've done to think about the bad."
Raised early on by her grandparents, James' tumultuous career began when, as 5-year-old Jamesetta Hawkins, she first belted out gospel in her home town of Los Angeles at St. Paul Baptist Church and on local radio stations.
"Everyone sang in church," says James, who lives in Riverside. "Then again, we sang everywhere. We even walked around the kitchen singing, so it seemed perfectly natural to do this for a living. Natural and definitely lucky. It's not easy to find something to make money at that you don't mind doing day in and day out."
A self-described incorrigible teen who smoked and drank, James moved to San Francisco in 1950 to join her mother, and at 14 she was discovered by bandleader Johnny Otis, who helped her get her first record deal with a song she wrote, "Roll With Me Henry," her answer to Hank Ballard's earlier hit "Work With Me Annie." Produced by Otis and released as "The Wallflower" (later renamed "Dance With Me Henry" when radio programmers objected to the original suggestive title), it became her first successful record and a No. 1 RB hit.
"It was really a joke at first. I wrote it pretty fast, but it became so popular, I couldn't believe it. I really have Hank to thank for that one," she laughs.
Riding the wave of her success with "Henry," James scored another quick success in 1955 with "Good Rockin' Daddy," a No. 6 RB hit. She wouldn't have another hit for five years, but continued to tour and develop her prowess as a live performer.
After switching record companies in 1960, moving to a subsidiary of the Chess label, James scored a No. 2 hit with "All I Could Do Was Cry," and the hits kept coming throughout the '60s -- she landed nine hits on the RB chart between 1960 and 1963 alone and remained with Chess for 16 years. Her '60s output included "At Last," `Trust in Me," "I'd Rather Go Blind" "Something's Got a Hold on Me," "All I Could Do Was Cry," and the biggest pop hit of her career, the barn burner "Tell Mama," which made it to No. 23 on the pop chart and No. 10 on the RB chart in 1967.
Soon, everyone from Janis Joplin and the Rolling Stones to Tina Turner and Natalie Cole were recording her songs and trying to match her gritty, soulful voice and raw power, inspiring a legion of imitators, which is just fine with James.
"It really is the sincerest form of flattery, you know? It's nice to know people can appreciate talent when they hear it," she jokes.
In the late 1960s, James developed an drug addiction that would last for much of the 1970s, creating a long hiatus from recording after the release of her 1980 studio album "Changes." It would be nearly a decade before she recorded another album, 1988's "The Seven Year Itch," produced and recorded in Nashville. During the time out of the national limelight, however, she remained a popular concert draw around the world, playing the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977 and opening shows for the Rolling Stones' 1978 tour.
She kicked her addiction in the '80s, and the '90s saw a revival of James' career and a resurgence of interest in her music. After bouncing through a succession of recording companies, she signed to the Windham Hill/Private Music label and regained her stature as a soul diva with the 1994 album "Mystery Lady: The Songs of Billie Holiday," which won her a Grammy Award. She quickly followed that with 1995's collection of jazz tunes "Time After Time" (which spent 22 weeks on Billboard's jazz chart), the country album "Love's Been Rough on Me" in 1997, the self-produced blues album "Life, Love and the Blues" in 1998 and a 1999's "Heart of a Woman." The 1994 disc "Live from San Francisco" showed her off as a fiery live performer.
There were other high points as well as well. In 1993 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 1994 she won a W.C. Handy Award for Best Female Vocalist. Then she told all in an acclaimed 1995 autobiography, the powerful and wrenchingly candid "Rage to Survive."
"That was one of the most wonderful times in my life," she says of her induction into the hall of fame. "To leave and then be so welcomed when I came back, that's a big boost for the old self esteem."
After weathering decades of changing musical fashion, James, 62, still does her music the way she wants and refuses to allow herself to be stereotyped. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she irreverently crosses over into the worlds of rock, pop, country and jazz. She's put her unique stamp on country hits by Hank Williams, David Houston, the Louvin Brothers as well as blues and soul classics by Marvin Gaye, Al Green, B. B. King, Sly Stone, Willie Dixon and others.
"The Blues and country are first cousins," she says. "What I look for in a song is for the story to be for real. I like a blood and guts kind of thing. That's what you find in the lyrics of country music. I want to show people that I am an artist and that I am not going to be pigeonholed; I do not want to be categorized and I don't want a label put on me. I won't stay in a little box, I want to sing what I want to sing."
Last year's "Heart of a Woman," for instance, found James interpreting classic jazz ballads like "You Don't Know What Love Is," "Say It Isn't So," "Good Morning, Heartache" and "My Old Flame." She brings all the pain and pathos of a well-lived life to these old standards, turning them over to find the dark beauty underneath, caressing them like old friends and finding new things to talk about, her smokey voice a mirror held up to their jagged edges.
"I'm still just being myself," she says. "I can't chase after fads. Why should I try to sound like the singers who are on the radio today? I've made my mark by being me. It's better for me that way.'
As legends go, Etta James is still special enough to be called unique.
She succeeded in a rough-and-tumble male-dominated business and endured a hard-knock life that took a huge personal toll, yet managed to churn out some of the meanest rhythm and blues (and some of the tenderest soul and jazz) of any female artist of the last several decades.
She has plowed past a mountain of tragedy -- including drug addiction, financial woes and abusive men -- but through the ups and downs kept her career alive, her sanity intact and her life in perspective. For James, the road just doesn't travel the same without a few bumps.
"I don't dwell on things like that, the past," the woman known as "Miss Peaches," says sharply about the troubles in her past. "It's not where I wanna be, you know? There's too much good that I've done to think about the bad."
Raised early on by her grandparents, James' tumultuous career began when, as 5-year-old Jamesetta Hawkins, she first belted out gospel in her home town of Los Angeles at St. Paul Baptist Church and on local radio stations.
"Everyone sang in church," says James, who lives in Riverside. "Then again, we sang everywhere. We even walked around the kitchen singing, so it seemed perfectly natural to do this for a living. Natural and definitely lucky. It's not easy to find something to make money at that you don't mind doing day in and day out."
A self-described incorrigible teen who smoked and drank, James moved to San Francisco in 1950 to join her mother, and at 14 she was discovered by bandleader Johnny Otis, who helped her get her first record deal with a song she wrote, "Roll With Me Henry," her answer to Hank Ballard's earlier hit "Work With Me Annie." Produced by Otis and released as "The Wallflower" (later renamed "Dance With Me Henry" when radio programmers objected to the original suggestive title), it became her first successful record and a No. 1 RB hit.
"It was really a joke at first. I wrote it pretty fast, but it became so popular, I couldn't believe it. I really have Hank to thank for that one," she laughs.
Riding the wave of her success with "Henry," James scored another quick success in 1955 with "Good Rockin' Daddy," a No. 6 RB hit. She wouldn't have another hit for five years, but continued to tour and develop her prowess as a live performer.
After switching record companies in 1960, moving to a subsidiary of the Chess label, James scored a No. 2 hit with "All I Could Do Was Cry," and the hits kept coming throughout the '60s -- she landed nine hits on the RB chart between 1960 and 1963 alone and remained with Chess for 16 years. Her '60s output included "At Last," `Trust in Me," "I'd Rather Go Blind" "Something's Got a Hold on Me," "All I Could Do Was Cry," and the biggest pop hit of her career, the barn burner "Tell Mama," which made it to No. 23 on the pop chart and No. 10 on the RB chart in 1967.
Soon, everyone from Janis Joplin and the Rolling Stones to Tina Turner and Natalie Cole were recording her songs and trying to match her gritty, soulful voice and raw power, inspiring a legion of imitators, which is just fine with James.
"It really is the sincerest form of flattery, you know? It's nice to know people can appreciate talent when they hear it," she jokes.
In the late 1960s, James developed an drug addiction that would last for much of the 1970s, creating a long hiatus from recording after the release of her 1980 studio album "Changes." It would be nearly a decade before she recorded another album, 1988's "The Seven Year Itch," produced and recorded in Nashville. During the time out of the national limelight, however, she remained a popular concert draw around the world, playing the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977 and opening shows for the Rolling Stones' 1978 tour.
She kicked her addiction in the '80s, and the '90s saw a revival of James' career and a resurgence of interest in her music. After bouncing through a succession of recording companies, she signed to the Windham Hill/Private Music label and regained her stature as a soul diva with the 1994 album "Mystery Lady: The Songs of Billie Holiday," which won her a Grammy Award. She quickly followed that with 1995's collection of jazz tunes "Time After Time" (which spent 22 weeks on Billboard's jazz chart), the country album "Love's Been Rough on Me" in 1997, the self-produced blues album "Life, Love and the Blues" in 1998 and a 1999's "Heart of a Woman." The 1994 disc "Live from San Francisco" showed her off as a fiery live performer.
There were other high points as well as well. In 1993 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 1994 she won a W.C. Handy Award for Best Female Vocalist. Then she told all in an acclaimed 1995 autobiography, the powerful and wrenchingly candid "Rage to Survive."
"That was one of the most wonderful times in my life," she says of her induction into the hall of fame. "To leave and then be so welcomed when I came back, that's a big boost for the old self esteem."
After weathering decades of changing musical fashion, James, 62, still does her music the way she wants and refuses to allow herself to be stereotyped. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she irreverently crosses over into the worlds of rock, pop, country and jazz. She's put her unique stamp on country hits by Hank Williams, David Houston, the Louvin Brothers as well as blues and soul classics by Marvin Gaye, Al Green, B. B. King, Sly Stone, Willie Dixon and others.
"The Blues and country are first cousins," she says. "What I look for in a song is for the story to be for real. I like a blood and guts kind of thing. That's what you find in the lyrics of country music. I want to show people that I am an artist and that I am not going to be pigeonholed; I do not want to be categorized and I don't want a label put on me. I won't stay in a little box, I want to sing what I want to sing."
Last year's "Heart of a Woman," for instance, found James interpreting classic jazz ballads like "You Don't Know What Love Is," "Say It Isn't So," "Good Morning, Heartache" and "My Old Flame." She brings all the pain and pathos of a well-lived life to these old standards, turning them over to find the dark beauty underneath, caressing them like old friends and finding new things to talk about, her smokey voice a mirror held up to their jagged edges.
"I'm still just being myself," she says. "I can't chase after fads. Why should I try to sound like the singers who are on the radio today? I've made my mark by being me. It's better for me that way.'