ETTA JAMES

Sugar On The Floor by ETTA James

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Biography by Bill Dahl (AMG)

Few R&B singers have endured tragic travails on the monumental level that Etta James has and remain on earth to talk about it. The lady's no shrinking violet; her autobiography, Rage to Survive, describes her past (including numerous drug addictions) in sordid detail.

But her personal problems have seldom affected her singing. James has hung in there from the age of R&B and doo wop in the mid-'50s through soul's late-'60s heyday and right up into the '90s and 2000s (where her 1994 disc Mystery Lady paid loving jazz-based tribute to one of her idols, Billie Holiday). Etta James' voice has deepened over the years, coarsened more than a little, but still conveys remarkable passion and pain.

Jamesetta Hawkins was a child gospel prodigy, singing in her Los Angeles Baptist church choir (and over the radio) when she was only five years old under the tutelage of Professor James Earle Hines. She moved to San Francisco in 1950, soon teaming with two other girls to form a singing group. When she was 14, bandleader Johnny Otis gave the trio an audition. He particularly dug their answer song to Hank Ballard & the Midnighters' "Work With Me Annie."

Against her mother's wishes, the young singer embarked for L.A. to record "Roll With Me Henry" with the Otis band and vocalist Richard Berry in 1954 for Modern Records. Otis inverted her first name to devise her stage handle and dubbed her vocal group the Peaches (also Etta's nickname). "Roll With Me Henry," renamed "The Wallflower" when some radio programmers objected to the original title's connotations, topped the R&B charts in 1955.

The Peaches dropped from the tree shortly thereafter, but Etta James kept on singing for Modern throughout much of the decade (often under the supervision of saxist Maxwell Davis). "Good Rockin' Daddy" also did quite well for her later in 1955, but deserving follow-ups such as "W-O-M-A-N" and "Tough Lover" (the latter a torrid rocker cut in New Orleans with Lee Allen on sax) failed to catch on.

James landed at Chicago's Chess Records in 1960, signing with their Argo subsidiary. Immediately, her recording career kicked into high gear; not only did a pair of duets with her then-boyfriend (Moonglows lead singer Harvey Fuqua) chart, her own sides (beginning with the tortured ballad "All I Could Do Was Cry") chased each other up the R&B lists as well. Leonard Chess viewed James as a classy ballad singer with pop crossover potential, backing her with lush violin orchestrations for 1961's luscious "At Last" and "Trust in Me." But James' rougher side wasn't forsaken -- the gospel-charged "Something's Got a Hold on Me" in 1962, a kinetic 1963 live LP (Etta James Rocks the House) cut at Nashville's New Era Club, and a blues-soaked 1966 duet with childhood pal Sugar Pie De Santo, "In the Basement," ensured that.

Although Chess hosted its own killer house band, James traveled to Rick Hall's Fame studios in Muscle Shoals in 1967 and emerged with one of her all-time classics. "Tell Mama" was a searing slice of upbeat Southern soul that contrasted markedly with another standout from the same sessions, the spine-chilling ballad "I'd Rather Go Blind." Despite the death of Leonard Chess, Etta James remained at the label into 1975, experimenting toward the end with a more rock-based approach.

There were some mighty lean years, both personally and professionally, for Miss Peaches. But she got back on track recording-wise in 1988 with a set for Island, Seven Year Itch, that reaffirmed her Southern soul mastery. Her following albums have been a varied lot -- 1990's Sticking to My Guns was contemporary in the extreme; 1992's Jerry Wexler-produced The Right Time, for Elektra, was slickly soulful, and her most other '90s outings have explored jazz directions. In 1998, she also issued a holiday album, Etta James Christmas. She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and in 2003 received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. That year also saw the release of her Let's Roll album, followed in 2004 by a CD of new blues performances, Blues to the Bone, both on RCA Records. James then shifted gears and released an album of pop standards, All the Way, on RCA in 2006.

In concert, Etta James is a sassy, no-holds-barred performer whose suggestive stage antics sometimes border on the obscene. She's paid her dues many times over as an R&B and soul pioneer; long may she continue to shock the uninitiated.

**My Note: Having seen Etta at least 200 Times Live - these are some of my favorite songs - that she usually does at her show!!

LEE 'SHOT' WILLIAMS

Ease On Down In The Bed by LEE 'SHOT' WILLIAMS

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Lee "Shot" Williams
Daddy B. Nice's #13 ranked Southern Soul Artist

About Lee "Shot" Williams
Lee Williams was dubbed "Shot" by his mother for his habit of wearing suits and dressing up as a "big shot." Born in 1938 in Lexington, Mississippi, he moved to Detroit in the fifties and then on to Chicago, where he eventually hooked up with fellow Mississippian Little Smokey Smothers. He interned with Chicago-based Magic Sam, then toured with Earl Hooker and Bobby "Blue" Bland.

His first album under his own name, Country Disco, was released in 1977. In the eighties, without commercial prospects, Williams moved back to Memphis, where he might very well have lived out the remainder of his life in obscurity but for small-label Black Magic's interest in giving him an opportunity. The result, Cold Shot, was voted the best blues album of 1995 by "Living Blues" magazine.
In 1996 Lee "Shot" Williams moved to Ecko Records, where he recorded Hot Shot, distinguished by creditable, straightforward blues numbers such as "Make Me Holler" and "I'll Take The Risk."

By 2000, however, Williams had honed a much more focused musical persona, evident in his smash chitlin' circuit hit, "She Made A Freak Out Of Me." The following year, he recorded his signature hit, "Somebody's After My Freak" (from the Somebody's After My Freak CD). Since then, Williams has continued to put out a steady stream of top-notch Southern Soul discs annually.

August 10, 2005. "Ease On Down In The Bed" from 2005's Nibble Man from Southern Soul label Ecko is yet another song that's as valuable for the musical directions it suggests as it is for Shot's patented up tempo magic. A percolating, organ-enhanced rhythm section strikes out into virgin territory, rhythmically speaking, while Lee "Shot" patters on in a seductive voice about bedroom geography. It's short on melody, but high on originality, groove and atmosphere.

INEZ and CHARLIE FOXX

You Are The Man by iNEZ & CHARLIE FOXX

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Biography by Ron Wynn (AMG)
This brother/sister duo from Greensboro made a little noise on the soul scene in the '60s. They signed with Juggy Murray Jones' Symbol label in 1962. Their biggest hit was "Mockingbird," in 1963, which was a number two R&B and number seven pop smash. Their vocal tradeoffs and arrangement were primarily responsible for its appeal, though Foxx could do some sizzling numbers on her own. They continued with "Ask Me" and "Hurt by Love," then switched to Musicor. Their final moderate hit was "(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days" in 1967 for Dynamo, which reached number 17 on the R&B charts. Inez Foxx had a solid LP on her own for Volt in 1969, At Memphis. But her solo songs for the label didn't generate much interest in the early and mid-'70s. James Taylor and Carly Simon later did a cover of "Mockingbird."


Review by Richie Unterberger (AMG)
Dynamo was the name of the Musicor subsidiary for which Inez & Charlie Foxx did most of their late-'60s recordings, and this collects a couple dozen tracks the duo cut for Musicor/Dynamo from 1966-1969. Their Dynamo output was more consistent than what they had recorded for Sue, thanks in part to input from producer Luther Dixon, who was married to Inez Foxx at the time. However, there was no outstanding single on the order of "Mockingbird" during their time with the label, and the pair still often sounded like a lesser, more pop-oriented version of Ike & Tina Turner. This is respectable but somewhat middling New York soul with, as was true of much of the city's 1960s soul output, a slicker sheen to the production than soul product from most other regions. On "I Love You 1,000 Times," they seem to be trying to mimic 1963-1964 Motown, and although they don't do so badly, that's a strategy doomed to failure. The comparison to the Turners bobs higher above the surface in the bluesy and sultry "I Stand Accused"/"Guilty" medley, one of the disc's highlights. A lowlight, however, is the outrageous 1968 medley of "Vaya Con Dios"/"Fellows in Vietnam," in which the traditional song turns into a rap about the Vietnam War. Just as you're getting all set for a protest or at least moving commentary, it builds into a plea for us to encourage American soldiers to get out of their foxholes and "kill another enemy to set us free, and to keep us free" -- not the sort of sentiment that could be heartily endorsed for a conflict that took so many needless lives, a disproportionate amount of whom (on the U.S. side) were African-Americans. This CD is preferable to a prior compilation of the Foxxes' Musicor/Dynamo work, Count the Days, as this has four more tracks, including a 1969 Inez Foxx solo effort, "You Shouldn't Have Set My Soul on Fire." Be cautioned that the version of "Mockingbird" is not the original 1963 hit single, but a 1968 remake with strings.

CLARENCE CARTER

Did I Do The Right Thing by CLARENCE CARTER

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Daddy B. Nice's #7 ranked Southern Soul Forerunner
Biography by Jason Ankeny (amg)
Singer Clarence Carter exemplified the gritty, earthy sound of Muscle Shoals R&B, fusing the devastating poignancy of the blues with a wicked, lascivious wit to create deeply soulful music rooted in the American South of the past and the present. Born January 14, 1936, in Montgomery, AL, Carter was blind from birth. He immediately gravitated to music, teaching himself guitar by listening to the blues classics of John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Jimmy Reed. He majored in music at Alabama State University, learning to transcribe charts and arrangements in Braille.

With blind classmate Calvin Scott, Carter in 1960 formed the duo Clarence & Calvin, signing to the Fairlane label to release "I Wanna Dance But I Don't Know How" the following year. After the 1962 release of "I Don't Know (School Girl)," Clarence & Calvin left Fairlane for the Duke imprint, renaming themselves the C & C Boys for their label debut, "Hey Marvin." In all, the duo cut four Duke singles, none of them generating more than a shrug at radio -- finally, in 1965 they traveled to Rick Hall's Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, AL, paying $85 to record the wrenching ballad "Step by Step" and its flip side, "Rooster Knees and Rice." Atlanta radio personality Zenas Sears recommended Clarence & Calvin to Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler, and the label issued "Step by Step" on its Atco subsidiary -- the record failed to chart, and the duo was once again looking for a label.

Backed by a four-piece combo dubbed the Mello Men, Clarence & Calvin spent the first half of 1966 headlining Birmingham's 2728 Club. One Friday night in June while returning home from the nightspot, the group suffered an auto accident that left Scott critically injured, initiating an ugly falling-out with Carter over the resulting medical bill. In the meantime, Carter continued as a solo act, signing to Hall's Fame label for 1967's "Tell Daddy," which inspired Etta James' response record, "Tell Mama." The superb popcorn-soul effort "Thread the Needle" proved a minor crossover hit, and after one additional Fame release, "The Road of Love," Carter returned to Atlantic with "Looking for a Fox," issued in early 1968. "Looking for a Fox" proved the first of many singles to slyly reference the singer's visual impairment, not to mention showcasing the libidinous impulses that dominate many of his most popular records.

But few performances better typified the emerging Carter aesthetic than "Slip Away," a superior cheating ballad spotlighting his anguished, massive baritone alongside the remarkably sinuous backing of Fame's exemplary backing band. The record was a Top Ten hit, and its follow-up, "Too Weak to Fight," also went gold, solidifying Carter's newfound commercial appeal. He ended 1968 with a superbly funky Christmas single, the raunchy "Back Door Santa," in addition to mounting a national tour featuring backing vocalist Candi Staton, who later became Carter's wife as well as a soul star in her own right.

The percolating "Snatching It Back" was Carter's first Atlantic release of 1969 -- its B-side, a remake of James Carr's deep soul classic "The Dark End of the Street," remains one of the singer's most potent efforts, drawing on traditional blues and gospel to explore both the absurdity and anguish of infidelity. Subsequent singles including "The Feeling Is Right," "Doing Our Thing," and "Take It Off Him and Put It on Me" were only marginally successful, but in 1970 Carter returned to the Top Ten with the sentimental "Patches," his biggest hit to date. He nevertheless stumbled again with a run of 1971 releases like "Getting the Bills" and "Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love," and in the wake of "If You Can't Beat 'Em" -- a duet with Staton -- Carter left Atlantic in 1972, returning to Fame with "Back in Your Arms Again."

Released in 1973, the leering "Sixty Minute Man" proved a novelty hit, but in 1975 he attempted to reignite his career at ABC, releasing "Take It All Off" and "Dear Abby" to little notice. By the end of the decade Carter was relegated to small independent labels like Future Stars and Ronn, and in 1980 signed to Venture for the ill-advised "Jimmy's Disco" and "Can We Slip Away Again?" In 1985 he resurfaced on the fledgling Ichiban label, returning to the ribald deep soul of his heyday -- the LP Dr. C.C. earned positive reviews and spawned the hilariously lewd "Strokin'," a major word-of-mouth hit. (A sequel, "Still Strokin'," followed in 1989.) Carter continued recording and touring regularly into the 21st century, maintaining a strong fan base throughout the South.