Bettye Swann — “Don’t You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me)?”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 3, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,004) Bettye Swann — Don’t You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me)?”

The real Queen of Country Soul reached #102 in ’69 with this killer soulified version of the Hank Cochran song first recorded by George Jones (’65) (and also done country style by Mel Tillis and Bob Wills (’70), Merle Haggard (’78), and Willie Nelson and Ray Price (’80) among many other versions). (https://secondhandsongs.com/work/126789/all)

Jason Ankeny tells us about Bettye:

Best known for her 1967 R&B chart-topper “Make Me Yours,” Southern soul chanteuse Bettye Swann was born Betty Jean Champion in Shreveport, Louisiana . . . . She . . . mount[ed] a solo career in 1964 with . . . [a] series of Arthur Wright-produced singles for the independent Los Angeles label Money. . . . [T]he gorgeous “Make Me Yours[]” . . . also served as the title for her first full-length LP. . . . [T]he next year heralded a leap to major label Capitol for “My Heart Is Closed for the Season.” The follow-up, “Don’t Touch Me,” was the first single released from Swann’s second long-player, The Soul View Now; Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me? followed in 1969, highlighted by the minor hit “Little Things Mean a Lot.” . . . Swann [then] landed at Atlantic; her label debut, “Victim of a Foolish Heart,” cracked the R&B Top 20 in 1972 . . . . Her next Atlantic effort, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” was notable in large part for its B-side, a reading of Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again,” that proved Swann a superb interpreter of country-soul — 1973’s “Yours Until Tomorrow” was backed by another Nashville cover, this time Tammy Wynette’s “Til I Get It Right.” In 1974, she made a return to the lower rungs of the Billboard Hot 100 with “The Boy Next Door” . . . . With 1975’s “All the Way In or All the Way Out” she again enjoyed minor chart success, but subsequent recording sessions are undocumented . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bettye-swann-mn0000050520

Here, she is interviewed by Jarrett Keene:

“So why did you quit the music industry anyway?” . . . Swann[:] “I love music and I love people . . . . But I hate show and I hate business. I couldn’t feel it, the show or the business.” . . . [T]he promising soul singer . . . . flirted with country music throughout her 15-year career. . . . [“]I left Louisiana in 1963. I was 18 . . . . [and] went to live with a sister . . . . When I first got to L.A., my friend Emma would always say, ‘Hey, that sounds good. Why don’t you do something?’ She introduced me to someone who knew Huey Harris, who wrote some well-known blues songs. That’s the person who introduced me to Al Scott [an R&B disc jockey], who had a radio show that was sponsored by Ruth Dolphin, [owner] of [a record store called] Dolphins of Hollywood and Money Records.” She chose the stage name Bettye Swann, because she always thought swans were “lovely.” . . . Scott became Swann’s manager and quickly got her into the studio with producer Arthur Wright. Wright would go on to create the perfect package for Bettye’s music. . . . She had already written an R&B chart-topper titled “Don’t Wait Too Long[]” . . . a couple of years earlier. . . . There had been other Swann songs . . . but none of them had traction. “Make Me Yours” . . . . perched itself at No. 1 on the R&B charts and was a certified Top-20 pop hit. . . . Things soured soon after, particularly her relationship with Scott. She left L.A. for Athens, Ga., and acquired a new manager, George Barton, an established music promoter in the South. After Swann’s contract with Money expired, Motown Records expressed interest in Swann. She passed on the label and instead hitched her wagon to Capitol Records in 1968. In essence, Swann jumped from the frying pan of a small, independent, Southern soul label with a built-in audience and into the fire of a mainstream record company that now had to sell a new artist to the larger listening public (i.e., white folks). The results were stellar. The reason was Wayne Schuler, a multi-talented producer/ songwriter/A&R guy from Louisiana . . . . He longed to have Swann sing tunes like “Stand By Your Man[.]” [and] . . . . wanted to make Swann a crossover artist, bridging the gap between country and soul. . . . [W]ith Shuler . . . she would record “Stand By Your Man” and Merle Haggard compositions like “Just Because You Can’t Be Mine.” Yet it was a sultry, down-tempo duet with Buck Owens on the Haggard classic “Today I Started Loving You Again” that thwarted Shuler’s plan to catapult Swann into stardom. According to Shuler, the heads of Capitol blew a gasket when they heard Owens perform a love song with a black woman . . . . The label quickly shelved the single. . . . “I had the feeling they wanted me to be a black female Charley Pride,” she says, laughing. . . . After leaving Money, Swann made Athens, Ga., her home and a launching pad for what many African-American musicians referred to as “the chitlin circuit.” . . . [H]er manager George Barton often had to pull a gun on someone in order for Bettye to get paid. . . . Swann married Barton in 1970. . . . She continued to record music and tour until 1976, when she and Barton moved to Las Vegas . . . . [H]er last public performance took place in 1980, the year Barton passed away. . . . [and she] was reborn as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090419052332/http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2005/03/03/cover_story/cover.txt

Here is George Jones:

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