Jamesetta Hawkins (Los Ángeles, 25
de enero de 1938-Riverside, California, 20 de enero de 2012), más conocida por
su nombre artístico Etta James, fue una cantante estadounidense de géneros
soul, jazz y rhythm and blues, considerada una de las grandes voces en la
historia del rhythm & blues.12
James fue prodigiosa en su tono de
voz y esto le permitió convertirse en una cantante de góspel, interpretando en
el coro de su iglesia de barrio en Los Ángeles. Empezó a hacer interpretaciones
en la radio a los cinco años, bajo la tutela e instrucción del profesor James
Earle Hines. Se trasladó a San Francisco en 1950, formando de inmediato un
grupo con otras dos cantantes. Cuando tenía 14 años, presentó su primera
audición con el director de orquesta Johnny Otis.
A petición de su madre, Etta
regresó a Los Ángeles para grabar "Roll With Me Henry" (rebautizada
en la galleta del disco como "The wallflower") con la banda Otis y el
vocalista Richard Berry para la compañía discográfica Modern Records. Otis
llamó al trío vocal The Peaches (más tarde, un apodo de Etta). La canción
"Roll with me Henry" llegó a los primeros puestos de las listas de
éxitos en 1955.
The Peaches se disolvió pronto, y
Etta siguió cantando para Modern Records durante toda la década de 1950 (frecuentemente
bajo la supervisión del saxo Maxwell Davis). "Good Rockin' Daddy" fue
otro éxito a finales de 1955, aunque otras canciones como "W-O-M-A-N"
y "Tough Lover" no lo fueron tanto.
En 1960 comienza a trabajar con la
discográfica Chess Records de Chicago, cantando para la subsidiaria Argo.
Inmediatamente, su carrera alcanzó un nivel altísimo de popularidad; no sólo
hizo un par de dúos con su novio (el cantante líder de los Moonglows, Harvey
Fuqua), sino que individualmente grabó canciones como la apasionada balada
"All I Could Do Was Cry", alcanzando lo más alto de las listas de
éxitos de R&B. Leonard Chess entendió a Etta como una cantante clásica de
baladas con un potencial añadido para la canción popular, e hizo que la acompañase
una orquestación de violines para su grabación de los temas «At Last» y «Trust
in me» en 1961. No obstante, Etta no abandonó su lado más áspero: en 1962 grabó
«Something's Got a Hold on Me», con tonos de góspel, en 1963 un vibrante disco
en directo (Etta James Rocks the House) grabado en el New Era Club de
Nashville, y en 1966 un dueto blusístico, «In the Basement», con su amiga Sugar
Pie De Santo.
En 1967 grabó uno de sus temas
clásicos, «Tell Mama», una balada soul optimista que contrastaba con otros
temas más dramáticos de la misma sesión como "I'd Rather Go Blind". A
pesar de la muerte de Leonard Chess, Etta permaneció en la compañía hasta 1975,
aproximándose finalmente a la música rock.
Tras unos años difíciles, regresó
en 1988 con un disco para Island titulado Seven Year Itch, que reafirmó su
maestría en el soul sureño. Sus siguientes discos fueron variados,
aproximándose tanto a la música más contemporánea (en 1990 con Sticking to My
Guns) como a la emotividad más explícita (en 1992 con The Right Time), pasando
por algunas aproximaciones al jazz y a la música navideña, como en 1998 con
Etta James Christmas.
James poseía el rango vocal de
contralto. Su estilo musical cambió a lo largo de su carrera. Al comienzo de su
carrera como grabadora, a mediados de la década de 1950, James se comercializó
como cantante de R&B y doo-wop. Después de firmar con Chess Records en
1960, se abrió paso como cantante de estilo pop tradicional, cubriendo los
estándares de jazz y pop en su álbum debut, At Last!. La voz de James se hizo
más profunda y áspera, moviendo su estilo musical en sus últimos años en los
géneros del soul y el jazz.
James fue una vez considerada una
de las músicas de blues y R&B más ignoradas en la historia de la música de
los Estados Unidos. No fue sino hasta principios de la década de 1990 cuando
comenzó a recibir importantes premios de la industria de los Grammy y la Blues
Foundation, y comenzó a recibir un amplio reconocimiento. En los últimos años,
se la vio como un puente entre el rhythm and blues y el rock and roll. James
influyó en una gran variedad de músicos, entre ellos Diana Ross, Christina
Aguilera, Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland y Hayley Williams de
Paramore, así como en los artistas británicos The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart,
Elkie Brooks y Amy Winehouse.
Su canción "Something's Got a
Hold on Me" ha sido reconocida de muchas maneras. El acto musical de
Bruselas Vaya con Dios cubrió la canción en su álbum de 1990 Night Owls. Otra
versión, realizada por Christina Aguilera, fue en la película Burlesque, del
2010. Pretty Lights probó la canción en "Finally Moving", seguida del
éxito de baile de Avicii "Levels", y nuevamente en el sencillo de
Florida, "Good Feeling".
El 23 de diciembre de 2011 fue
ingresada en el hospital Riverside Community de California con una leucemia
terminal.3 La cantante, ganadora de seis premios Grammy, fue adicta a la
heroína durante muchos años. Falleció el 20 de enero de 2012 a los 73 años, lo
anunció su amiga y representante Lupe de León.4 Christina Aguilera conmemoró a
Etta cantando en su funeral el sencillo "At Last".
///////
Jamesetta Hawkins, best known as
Etta James (January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was an American singer who
performed in various genres, including blues, R&B, soul, rock and roll,
jazz and gospel. Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as
"The Wallflower", "At Last", "Tell Mama",
"Something's Got a Hold on Me", and "I'd Rather Go Blind".
She faced a number of personal problems, including heroin addiction, severe
physical abuse, and incarceration, before making a musical comeback in the late
1980s with the album Seven Year Itch.
James's powerful, deep, earthy
voice bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll. She won six
Grammy Awards and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Blues Hall
of Fame in 2001. Rolling Stone magazine ranked James number 22 on its list of
the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time; she was also ranked number 62 on its list
of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Hawkins was born on January 25,
1938, in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Hawkins, who was 14 at the time.
Although her father has never been identified, James speculated that she was
the daughter of pool player Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone, whom
she met briefly in 1987. Her mother was frequently absent from their apartment
in Watts, conducting relationships with various men, and James lived with a
series of foster parents, most notably "Sarge" and "Mama"
Lu. James referred to her mother as "the Mystery Lady".
James received her first
professional vocal training at the age of five from James Earle Hines, musical
director of the Echoes of Eden choir at the St. Paul Baptist Church, in
South-Central Los Angeles. Under his tutelage, she suffered physical abuse
during her formative years, with her instructor often punching her in the chest
while she sang to force her voice to come from her gut. As a consequence, she
developed an unusually strong voice for a child her age.
Sarge, like the musical director
for the choir, was also abusive. During drunken poker games at home, he would
awaken James in the early morning hours and force her with beatings to sing for
his friends. The trauma of her foster father forcing her to sing under these
humiliating circumstances caused her to have difficulties with singing
on-demand throughout her career.
In 1950, Mama Lu died, and James's
biological mother took her to the Fillmore district of San Francisco. Within a
couple of years, she began listening to doo-wop and was inspired to form a girl
group, the Creolettes (because of the members' light-skinned complexions).
At the age of 14, she met musician
Johnny Otis. Stories on how they met vary. In Otis's version, she came to his
hotel after one of his performances in the city and persuaded him to audition
her. Another story was that Otis spotted the Creolettes performing at a Los
Angeles nightclub and sought for them to record his "answer song" to
Hank Ballard's "Work with Me, Annie". Otis took the group under his
wing, helping them sign to Modern Records and changing their name from the
Creolettes to the Peaches. He also gave the singer her stage name, transposing
Jamesetta into Etta James. James recorded the version, for which she was given
credit as co-author, in 1954, and the record was released in early 1955 as
"Dance with Me, Henry". The original title of the song was "Roll
with Me, Henry", but it was changed to avoid censorship due to the
off-color title (roll implying sexual activity). In February of that year, the
song reached number one on the Hot Rhythm & Blues Tracks chart. Its success
gave the group an opening spot on Little Richard's national tour.
While James was on tour with
Richard, pop singer Georgia Gibbs recorded a version of James's song, which was
released under the title "The Wallflower" and became a crossover hit,
reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100, which angered James. After
leaving the Peaches, James had another R&B hit with "Good Rockin'
Daddy" but struggled with follow-ups. When her contract with Modern came
up for renewal in 1960, she signed a contract with Chess Records instead.
Shortly afterward she was involved in a relationship with the singer Harvey
Fuqua, the founder of the doo-wop group the Moonglows.
Musician Bobby Murray toured with
James for over 20 years. He wrote that James had her first hit single when she
was 15 years old and went steady with B.B. King when she was 16. James believed
that King's hit single "Sweet Sixteen" was about her. In early 1955,
she and an aspiring singer, the 19-year-old Elvis Presley, then recording for
Sun Studios and an avid fan of King's, shared a bill in a large club just
outside Memphis. In her autobiography, she noted how impressed she was with the
young singer's manners. She also recalled how happy he made her many years
later when she found out that it was Presley who had moved her close friend
Jackie Wilson from a substandard convalescent home to a more appropriate
facility and, as she put it, paid all the expenses. Presley died a year later.
Wilson went on to live for another ten years in the care center Presley found
for him.
Dueting with Harvey Fuqua, James
recorded for Argo Records (later renamed Cadet Records), a label established by
Chess. Her first hit singles with Fuqua were "If I Can't Have You"
and "Spoonful". Her first solo hit was the doo-wop–styled
rhythm-and-blues song "All I Could Do Was Cry", which was a number
two R&B hit. Chess Records co-founder Leonard Chess envisioned James as a
classic ballad stylist who had potential to cross over to the pop charts and
soon surrounded the singer with violins and other string instruments. The first
string-laden ballad James recorded was "My Dearest Darling" in May
1960, which peaked in the top five of the R&B chart. James sang background
vocals for her labelmate Chuck Berry on his "Back in the U.S.A."
Her debut album, At Last!, was
released in late 1960 and was noted for its varied selection of music, from
jazz standards to blues to doo-wop and rhythm and blues (R&B). The album
included the future classic "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and
"A Sunday Kind of Love". In early 1961, James released what was to
become her signature song, "At Last", which reached number two on the
R&B chart and number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100. Though the record was not
as successful as expected, her rendition has become the best-known version of
the song. James followed that with "Trust in Me", which also included
string instruments. Later that same year, James released a second studio album,
The Second Time Around. The album took the same direction as her first,
covering jazz and pop standards and with strings on many of the songs. It
produced two hit singles, "Fool That I Am" and "Don't Cry
Baby".
James started adding gospel
elements in her music the following year, releasing "Something's Got a
Hold on Me", which peaked at number four on the R&B chart and was a
Top 40 pop hit. That success was quickly followed by "Stop the
Wedding", which reached number six on the R&B chart and also had
gospel elements. In 1963, she had another major hit with "Pushover"
and released the live album Etta James Rocks the House, recorded at the New Era
Club in Nashville, Tennessee. After a couple of years of minor hits, James's
career started to suffer after 1965. After a period of isolation, she returned
to recording in 1967 and reemerged with more gutsy R&B numbers thanks to
her recording at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. These
sessions yielded her comeback hit "Tell Mama", co-written by Clarence
Carter, which reached number ten R&B and number twenty-three pop. An album
of the same name was also released that year and included her take on Otis
Redding's "Security". The B-side of "Tell Mama" was
"I'd Rather Go Blind", which became a blues classic and has been
recorded by many other artists. In her autobiography, Rage to Survive, she
wrote that she heard the song outlined by her friend Ellington "Fugi"
Jordan when she visited him in prison. According to her account, she wrote the
rest of the song with Jordan, but for tax reasons gave her songwriting credit
to her partner at the time, Billy Foster.
Following this success, James
became an in-demand concert performer though she never again reached the heyday
of her early to mid-1960s success. Her records continued to chart in the
R&B Top 40 in the early 1970s, with singles such as "Losers
Weepers" (1970) and "I Found a Love" (1972). Though James
continued to record for Chess, she was devastated by the death of Leonard Chess
in 1969. James ventured into rock and funk with the release of her self-titled
album in 1973, with production from the famed rock producer Gabriel Mekler, who
had worked with Steppenwolf and Janis Joplin, who had admired James and had
covered "Tell Mama" in concert. The album, known for its mixture of
musical styles, was nominated for a Grammy Award. The album did not produce any
major hits; neither did the follow-up, Come a Little Closer, in 1974, though,
like Etta James before it, the album was also critically acclaimed. James
continued to record for Chess (now owned by All Platinum Records), releasing
one more album in 1976, Etta Is Betta Than Evvah! Her 1978 album Deep in the
Night, produced by Jerry Wexler for Warner Bros., incorporated more rock-based
music in her repertoire. That same year, James was the opening act for the
Rolling Stones and performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Following this
brief success, however, she left Chess Records and did not record for another
ten years as she struggled with drug addiction and alcoholism.
Though she continued to perform,
little was heard of James until 1984, when she contacted David Wolper and asked
to perform in the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics, at which she
sang "When the Saints Go Marching In". In 1987, she performed "Rock
& Roll Music" with Chuck Berry in the documentary film Hail! Hail!
Rock 'n' Roll.
In 1989, she signed with Island
Records and released the albums Seven Year Itch and Stickin' to My Guns, both
of which were produced by Barry Beckett and recorded at FAME Studios. Also in
1989 James was filmed in a concert at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles with
Joe Walsh and Albert Collins for the film Jazzvisions: Jump the Blues Away.
Many of the backing musicians were top-flight players from Los Angeles: Rick
Rosas (bass), Michael Huey (drums), Ed Sanford (Hammond B3 organ), Kip Noble
(piano) and Josh Sklair, her longtime guitar player.
James participated with the rap
singer Def Jef on the song "Droppin' Rhymes on Drums", which mixed
James's jazz vocals with hip-hop. In 1992, she recorded the album The Right
Time, produced by Jerry Wexler for Elektra Records. She was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
James signed with Private Music
Records in 1993 and recorded a Billie Holiday tribute album, Mystery Lady:
Songs of Billie Holiday. The album set a trend of incorporating more jazz
elements in James's music. The album won James her first Grammy Award, for Best
Jazz Vocal Performance, Female, in 1994. In 1995, her autobiography, A Rage to
Survive, co-written with David Ritz, was published. Also in 1995, she recorded
the album Time After Time. A Christmas album, Etta James Christmas, was
released in 1998.
By the mid-1990s, James's earlier
classic music was being used in commercials, including "I Just Wanna Make
Love to You". After an excerpt of the song was featured in a Diet Coke
advertising campaign in the UK, it reached the top ten on the UK charts in
1996.
By 1998, with the release of Life,
Love & the Blues, she had added as backing musicians her sons, Donto and
Sametto, on drums and bass, respectively. They continued as part of her touring
band. She went on recording for Private Music, which released the blues album
Matriarch of the Blues in 2000, on which she returned to her R&B roots;
Rolling Stone hailed it as a "solid return to roots", further stating
that with this album she was "reclaiming her throne—and defying anyone to
knock her off it". In 2001, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the latter for her contributions to the
developments of both rock and roll and rockabilly. In 2003, she received a
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. On her 2004 release, Blue Gardenia, she
returned to a jazz style. Her final album for Private Music, Let's Roll,
released in 2005, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine
ranked her number 62 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
James at the 2006 Common Ground
Festival in Lansing, Michigan
James performed at the top jazz
festivals in the world, such as the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977, 1989, 1990
and 1993. She performed nine times at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival and
five times at the San Francisco Jazz Festival. She performed at the Playboy
Jazz Festival in 1990, 1997, 2004, and 2007. She performed at the New Orleans
Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2006, 2009, and 2012. She also often performed
at free summer arts festivals throughout the United States.
In 2008, James was portrayed by
Beyoncé Knowles in the film Cadillac Records, a fictional account of Chess
Records, James's label for 18 years, and how label founder and producer Leonard
Chess helped the careers of James and others. The film portrayed her pop hit
"At Last". James later said that her previous critical remarks about
Knowles for having performed "At Last" at the inauguration of Barack
Obama were a joke stemming from how she felt hurt that she herself was not
invited to sing her song. It was later reported that Alzheimer's disease and
"drug-induced dementia" had contributed to her negative comments
about Knowles.
In April 2009, at the age of 71,
James made her final television appearance, performing "At Last" on
the program Dancing with the Stars. In May 2009, she received the Soul/Blues
Female Artist of the Year award from the Blues Foundation, the ninth time she
won the award. She carried on touring but by 2010 had to cancel concert dates
because of her gradually failing health, after it was revealed that she was
suffering from dementia and leukemia. In November 2011, James released her
final album, The Dreamer, which was critically acclaimed upon its release. She
announced that this would be her final album. Her continuing relevance was
affirmed in 2011 when the late Swedish DJ Avicii achieved substantial chart
success with the song "Levels", which samples her 1962 song
"Something's Got a Hold on Me". The same sample was used by the east
coast rapper Flo Rida in his 2011 hit single "Good Feeling". Both
artists issued statements of condolence upon James's death.
On June 25, 2019, The New York
Times Magazine listed Etta James among hundreds of artists whose material was
reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
James possessed the vocal range of
a contralto. Her musical style changed during the course of her career. At the
beginning of her recording career, in the mid-1950s, James was marketed as an
R&B and doo-wop singer. After signing with Chess Records in 1960, James
broke through as a traditional pop-styled singer, covering jazz and pop music
standards on her debut album, At Last! James's voice deepened and coarsened,
moving her musical style in her later years into the genres of soul and jazz.
James was once considered one of
the most overlooked blues and R&B musicians in the music history of the
United States. It was not until the early 1990s, when she began receiving major
industry awards from the Grammys and the Blues Foundation, that she received
wide recognition. In recent years,[when?] she was seen as bridging the gap
between rhythm and blues and rock and roll. James has influenced a wide variety
of musicians, including Diana Ross, Christina Aguilera, Janis Joplin, Brandy,
Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, and Hayley Williams of Paramore as well as
British artists The Rolling Stones, Elkie Brooks, Paloma Faith, Joss Stone Rita
Ora, and Adele, and the Belgian singer Dani Klein.
Her song "Something's Got a
Hold on Me" has been recognized in many ways. Brussels music act Vaya Con
Dios covered the song on their 1990 album Night Owls. Another version,
performed by Christina Aguilera, was in the 2010 film Burlesque. Pretty Lights
sampled the song in "Finally Moving", followed by Avicii's dance hit
"Levels", and again in Flo Rida's single "Good Feeling".
Personal life
James was hospitalized in January
2010 to treat an infection caused by MRSA, a bacterium resistant to many
antibiotics. During her hospitalization, her son Donto revealed that she had
received a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in 2008.
James was diagnosed with leukemia
in early 2011. The illness became terminal, and her husband Art Miller was
appointed sole conservator of the James estate and to oversee her medical care.
She died on January 20, 2012, five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside
Community Hospital in Riverside, California. Her death came three days after
that of Johnny Otis, the man who had discovered her in the 1950s. Thirty-six
days after her death, her sideman Red Holloway died.
James's tomb at Inglewood Park
Cemetery
Her funeral was presided over by
Reverend Al Sharpton and took place in Gardena, California eight days after her
death. Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, and Christina Aguilera each gave a musical
tribute. She was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles County,
California.
