I've been on an Etta James jag ever since I watched "Cadillac Records." I pulled out all her CDs and even re-read her autobiography, which reminded me why she sounded so much more worldly when she recorded "At Last" at the age of 22 than Beyonce does now singing it at the age of 27. (See posting below from January 22.) Etta had already packed a lot of living into those 22 years. She was born and grew up in LA with a prostitute mom who was in and out of her life. They moved to San Francisco when Etta was about 12 and she proceeded to become a juvenile delinquent. She went on to become a junkie and a hustler, and she and her husband once got busted in San Antonio. (He took the fall and ended up serving 10 years.) Somehow she managed to survive it all. But Etta still has a little gangsta in her. At a recent performance in Seattle, she said this to the crowd: "You know your president, right? You know, the one with the big ears? He ain't my president. He might be your president. But I tell you that woman he has singing for him, singing my song. She's gonna get her ass whipped." Etta later said she was kidding. Who knows? All I know is, even though she just turned 71, I wouldn't want to mess with her.
I have a couple of more fond memories of Etta. Once, on a flight between LA and Texas, I stepped into the cabin and found Etta and one of her sons sitting in the first row. I took the opportunity to thank her for her music and she said thanks, seemingly surprised that she'd been recognized. But how could anyone miss her? She was well over 300 pounds at the time, as she was for much of her adult life. (She recently underwent gastric bypass surgery, which explains her new, svelte look.)
But my most lasting memory of Etta James is hearing her voice for the first time. It was the fall of 1963, I was 6 years old, and my father had just opened a bar. The jukebox was stacked with mostly Mexican music, but there were a handful of English songs and one of them was "My Dearest Darling" (released on the Chess sub-label, Argo). Something about those swirling strings and that New Orleans two-step written by Paul Gayten and Edwin Bocage (Eddie Bo to the cognoscenti) grabbed me. But it was Etta's alternately smooth and gritty vocal that really brought it home, and to this day it's my favorite song of hers. Thank goodness Beyonce didn't take that one on.
PS--On Eddie Bo's 1957 recording of "My Dearest Darling" on the Chess label, the song is credited to Gayten and C. Henry--presumably Clarence "Frogman" Henry, another New Orleans stalwart whose hits included "Ain't Got No Home" and "I Don't Know Why, But I Do." Who knows who really wrote it? Credits were a pretty loosey-goosey arrangement back in the day, especially when the Chess brothers were involved.
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