Etta James – Queen of the Blues

The first Etta James recording I heard was 'At Last'. It was raining outside and there was a deep-cast gloom inside. And then this incredible, soul-searing voice came up on the radio, and it was like a light going on inside me. It was one of those momentous moments when the music and the atmosphere are just so exactly right that it feels like being on the verge of a grand discovery. All the dreary weariness seeped out of me and I sat there, completely, completely transfixed. I had never heard anyone sing with such uninhibited emotion. I've been an unabashed fan ever since.

Etta James, whose real name was Jamesette Hawkins, was born on 25 January 1938 in Los Angeles, USA. She showed a distinct aptitude for music and singing quite early on, and was encouraged by her religious-minded family to begin music lessons at the age of five with the Music Director of their Los Angeles-based St. Paul Baptist Church, James Earl Hines. Over the next years she sang regularly with the Church's Echoes of Eden Choir and also on the local Radio. When she was twelve, her family moved to San Francisco and here she developed a strong interest in Rhythm and Blues, being particularly influenced by Billie Holliday. She decided that she too wanted to pursue a professional career as a songstress, and formed a singing trio 'The Creolettes' with two girlfriends. She was only fourteen when they went for an audition with the famous band-leader Johny Otis. It was a successful audition and landed them a recording deal with Modern Records. Jamesette agreed to change her name to the more catching anagram, Etta James, the Creolettes took on her nickname 'Peaches', and, in 1954, disregarding her mother's opposition, they were in Los Angeles for the recording. It was the start of what was to be an immensely successful and equally volatile career.

The song they recorded was the same one they had performed for the audition, a song inspired by the current chart-topper by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. It was called 'Work With Me Annie', but Etta James and the Peaches, deciding this song was too tame for them, had transformed it into the more suggestive 'Roll With Me Henry'. This, however, was too wild for the moralistic atmosphere of the Nineteen-Fifties, and so, after receiving objections from several Radio Programmers, the title had to be changed to 'Wallflower'. While agreeing to these changes however, Etta James did not compromise with the soulfully seductive quality of the song, and it proved to be an instant hit, reaching the second place on the 1955 R&B Charts. It received further impetus when Georgia Gibbs, a well-known singer of the period, did a more sedate cover version that was recorded as 'Dance With Me, Henry'. This version reached the number one spot. Shortly after this, the Peaches split and Etta James sailed on to a solo career. Her next song 'Good Rockin' Daddy', which was released in 1955, made her a household name amongst the Blues lovers in America, but the following two songs 'W-O-M-A-N' and 'Tough Love', which were equally good, proved for some reason less popular.

From a teen sensation, Etta James soon became a mature, full-blooded singer. She recorded the hits 'All I Could Do Was Cry', 'Don't Cry, Baby', 'Trust Me', 'At Last', Something's Got A Hold On Me', 'Stop The Wedding', 'I'd Rather Go Blind', 'If I Can't Have You', 'Tell Mama', and 'In the Basement' between 1960 and 1967 with the Chess Records Company which she had joined in 1960. These songs, which rank amongst the greatest Blues recordings ever, kept her in top echelons of the Rhythm and Blues and Top 40 Charts. During this period she also extensively toured the American South and also became infatuated with the immensely attractive Harvey Fuqua, the lead singer of The Moonglows, with whom she recorded a couple of duets. However her romantic interest was not reciprocated and he ended up marrying someone else. Etta James, always emotionally volatile and unstable, reacted by falling into a vicious downward spiral of drug and alcohol addiction. Amazingly, this has little effect on her professional career and she continued producing hits for Chess Records until 1975. Her last album for them 'Etta is Betta Than Evah', released in 1977, was not up to her usual par, and was done only to fulfill the conditions of the contract and obtain her release.

There were hiatuses in her career in the Nineteen-Eighties as it was finally overwhelmed by her addictions, and she needed to take time off to get her life back in order. This she managed to some extent, her painful experiences adding a special depth and emotiveness to her singing. She opened for the Rolling Stones Concert in 1978, performed in small clubs, and, in 1988, was back in the recording studio, producing the Southern Soul album 'Seven Year Itch' for Island Records. Since then she has produced the critically acclaimed 'Sticking To My Guns'(1990), 'The Right Time For Electra' (1992), 'Mystery Lady: Songs Of Billie Holiday' (1994), the 'Etta James Christmas' (1998). These days she performs with her two sons, Donto and Sametto.

Etta James has been nominated for six Grammy Awards in the course of her career, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2003 she got her won star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Along with her equally formidable contemporaries Dinah Washington, Aretha Franklin, Ruth Brown, and Dionne Warwick, she has had a far-reaching influence on the musical styles of latter-day singers like Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, and countless others. As long as the Blues endure, so will her legacy.