( Jamesetta Hawkins said ) / Los Angeles , California, January 25, 1938 The blues is a constant in the existence of Etta James has always relied on his roots to take the initiative each time his career threatened to stall. With a middle and a showdown worthy of Bessie Smith, she personalizes age of soul permanence of African-American woman in her refusal to submit to the dictatorship male. To get itself known all the vicissitudes related to female status in a culture centered on the assertion of the supposed superiority of men, she never sing the emotional deprivation, sexual and social, without sacrificing ease pathos. Blues which it adopted the redeeming virtues of misfortune, she holds her affinity with southern soul, discovered relatively late in his career and allowing it to remain today one of the greatest figures of the traditional rhythm & blues worldwide. On the stages of major festivals, using her obesity as a weapon to rally the better gender relations in their most pathetic, she managed to raise the level of obscenity in art, as had done between the two wars classic blues singers.
From birth Jamesetta Hawkins was able to measure his dismay at the brutality that governs human relations in the African American community. Supposed daughter of a king of the pool that used the psychological fragility of his mother (a 14 year old girl in search of affection) Jamesetta grew up in California between a peripatetic aunt, specializing in marine on leave, an adoptive mother who has the bad idea to die in her arms when she was only twelve, and alcoholic stepfather decided to cash in donations that his protected speech manifest vividly in the choir of Reverend J. Earl Hines. With such a pedigree, it is not surprising that Jamesetta Hawkins have wanted overcome early cumbersome guardianship of his past by starting a tour with the great Johnny Otis Orchestra - opting to move to the stage name Etta James who never leave.
His meeting with Johnny Otis in 1954 describes his situation and his character used to take her independence since she returned to live with her real mother in San Francisco with two friends she formed a vocal trio called Creolettes who auditioned for one night Johnny Otis. Having already discovered Esther Philips and Little Willie John, Johnny Otis does not speak up when he moved to Etta coming to Los Angeles to record a disc, provided that his mother agrees. As Dorothy Hawkins is in jail that night, Etta pretends call him and returned the next day with a false authorization to signed it herself. Having renamed the Creolettes in Peaches, Johnny Otis produced the first recording of Etta James on behalf of Modern disk. Roll With Me Henry , published in early 1955, is a response to a current hit Hank Ballard entitled Work With Me Annie . If
foremost issue dancing black teenagers, there is little doubt that the "work" to which Henry and Annie are working for nothing and the school song by Etta begins by grind up a few teeth Modern that decides to adopt a title more clearly boilerplate Wallflower . Taking the top of the charts for four weeks before dark to inspire the singer white Geogia Gibbs wisely called a cover pop Dance With Me Henry , this song is launch the careers of Etta James . While
Good Rockin 'Daddy takes over on the charts and other records as Baby, Baby Tough Lover made in New Orleans show the permanence of his talent and tours that are linked until the end of the decade are to lose Etta the little naivety that was left, after the drug, she discovers the darker face of love when her boyfriend Harvey Fuqua, the leading Moonglows, abandons her to marry a sister of Berry Gordy in Detroit.
Before leaving, Fuqua has made Etta gift to present to Leonard Chess of Chess Records in Chicago in 1960. Homeland discography of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry is looking for artists able to adapt to changing musical fashions and the arrival of Etta James Leonard Chess gives an opportunity to put one foot in the universe Soul by publishing a series of ballads, heavily orchestrated by Riley Hampton, who are selling remarkably well on the fronts R & B and Pop at the beginning of the new decade: All I Could Do Was Cry and My Dearest Darling and as two duets with Harvey Fuqua, If I Can not Have You and Spoonful, for 1960 alone, At Last, Trust in Me and Do not Cry, Baby in 1961 Something's Got a Hold on Me, Stop the Wedding and Next Door to the Blues in 1962 , Pushover in 1963 ...
If it multiplies the sentimental ballads in studio, Etta James gum romanticism when it goes on stage, as can be heard on the album Rock the House , recorded live in Nashville in 1963, molded in pink chiffon dresses, purple or blue sky highlighting its vocal forms, she speaks with a sincerity that leaves no endows the lack of innocence of his outlook on life. But gradually as the traditional ballad loses its appeal in the ghettos in favor of a more contemporary rhythm & blues, hard to Etta languish in the bottom of the rankings, after a mediocre year 1965, The duo In the Basement - part 1 she recorded with his childhood friend Sugar Pie DeSanto allows him to return to Top 40 R & B at the end of summer 1966, but there is little doubt that his career has taken a new turn when she hears reacquainted success.
In 1967, at a time when Stax and Atlantic soul Southern popularized with Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin, Leonard Chess decided to send Etta James , it baptizes The Queen of Soul in the studio Fame by Rick Hall in Muscle Shoals where she recorded album Tell Mama . With the exception of 45-t Cadet (Chess label) in which we find Tell Mama and I'd Rather Go Blind , no singles Etta accessing the Soul which does Top10 not his name to remain on the charts regularly until the middle of the next decade thanks to the honorable hits including I Got You Babe (1968), Almost Persuaded (1969), Losers weepers - part 1 (1970), I Found a Love (1972) and All the Way Down (1973), extracted from 33-t as Etta James (1973) and Come a Little Closer (1974).
The atmosphere is however not the same in chess since the demise of its founder in 1969, to the point that Etta chicagoanne left the firm in the middle of the decade for an uncertain future. After the release in the general indifference of Deep in the Night produced by Jerry Wexler in 1978 for Warner at the height of the disco era, Etta James find studios in New Orleans where she signed Changes the collection under the direction of Allen Toussaint, but his life, interrupted treatment for detoxification in a psychiatric hospital, is in tatters. Only with the comeback of blues in the early 1980s, she ends up itself. Invited to sing at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, she recorded two successful albums in the company of veteran bluesman Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson before returning to the studios of Muscle Shoals for collections Seven Year Itch , produced by Barry Beckett in 1988 and The Right Time, produced by Jerry Wexler in 1992.
Since she has definitely won the battle against his inner demons at the cost of bulimia, which hampers its silhouette, Etta James door wherever it occurs the word of a soulful blues with strong connotations, not to mention the jazz that was already the center of his tribute Billie Holiday in 1994 ( Mystery Lady) and she found grace on Blue Gardenia in 2001.
privileged witness to the savagery of existence, Etta James intends to use the full range of Afro-American to make to anyone who will listen, a rare lesson in survival.
Music
Videos
source of the biography: Encyclopedia of Rhythm & Blues, Sebastian Danchin (2002 - Fayard)
0 comments:
Post a Comment