THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,585) Etta James — “Mellow Fellow”
Forget King James, here is Queen James, the original Queen of Soul (see #316, 498) “wailing to a stomping beat” (Joe Marchese, https://theseconddisc.com/2012/07/18/the-feeling-is-right-kent-offers-expanded-etta-james-lp-clarence-carter-singles-collection/) on this “[g]reat classic mid-tempo Rnb/Mod dancer”. (https://rhythmlounge.co.uk/product/etta-james-mellow-fellow-argo-demo-vg/) This is no mellow fella!
As Derek Anderson says, “Etta James had one of the most recognizable, charismatic and soulful voices you’ll ever have privilege of hearing.” (https://dereksmusicblog.com/2015/02/22/etta-james-at-last-2/)
Joseph Washek gives a sense of Etta’s life:
Etta James was in the heartbreak business. Other singers sold sweet dreams of love, romance, and sex, but Etta James sold pain and she had an endless supply. . . . She never knew who her father was. When she was born, her mother who was fourteen, abandoned her, leaving her with a childless older couple. The woman, called “Mama Lu” by Etta, became her surrogate mother . . . . But . . . . [p]eriodically, her birth mother, Dorothy, who loved the night life, would appear and take the child away. . . . They would live in squalor . . . and then, bored and frustrated with parenthood, Dorothy would return Etta . . . . The pattern continued until Etta was twelve when Mama Lu died. Dorothy . . . took her to San Francisco. . . . [and] . . . left Etta with [Dorothy’s brother] and walked away. . . . Etta was shuttled between her aunt and uncle and her mother . . . . [She] began running with gangs and at fourteen was put in juvenile detention for thirty days. . . . Etta . . . had been gifted with extraordinary musical ability . . . . She was a radio Gospel star at the age of seven. She . . . was discovered by Johnny Otis and at sixteen recorded her song “Roll With Me Henry”, which became one of the biggest R&B hits of 1955. She became a star, went on the road with the Johnny Otis Show, and had more hits. . . . [But] she got ripped off by everyone; the record company didn’t pay royalties, Otis put his wife’s name on “Roll With Me Henry” and a white woman, Georgia Gibbs, covered it as “Dance With Me Henry[” and it reached] #1 Pop and sold over a million copies. Etta was singing for $10 a night when she watched Gibbs sing “Dance With Me Henry” on The Ed Sullivan Show. By 1960, the hits had stopped coming . . . . Leonard Chess . . . was looking for black artists who could “crossover” and sell to the pop audience. He gave Etta a chance and soon she was again one of the biggest stars in Black Music and selling records to white people too. . . . [But s]he began shooting heroin[, t]he records started to sell less well . . . [, s]he started doing crimes for drug money[,] was in and out of jail[ and] in a . . . physically abusive relationship . . . . Leonard Chess [however,] never lost faith in her. . . .
Sooze Blues and Jazz lets us know that:
West Coast rhythm and blues titan Johnny Otis discovered James in 1954. “We were up in San Francisco,” Otis recalled in Rolling Stone, “for a date at the Fillmore. That was when it was black. … I was asleep in my hotel room when … my manager phoned. He was in a restaurant and a little girl was bugging him: she wanted to sing for me. I told him to have her come around to the Fillmore that night. But she grabbed the phone from him and shouted that she wanted to sing for me NOW. I told her that I was in bed—and she said she was coming over anyway. Well, she showed up with two other little girls. And when I heard her, I jumped out of bed and began getting dressed. We went looking for her mother since she was a minor. I brought her to L.A., where she lived in my home like a daughter.” . . . Otis took the Creolettes to Los Angeles—with the forged permission of the underage Jamesetta’s mother—and put them into his revue. He renamed the group The Peaches, and reversed Jamesetta’s name, creating what has remained her stage name ever since: Etta James.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 1,000 songs. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 