Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins): January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012.
I didn’t know who she was until she died, seems to happen too often these days. Luckily I was listening to 702 ABC the day after she died and heard the news. Adam Spencer interviewed someone who spoke with such passion about Etta James that I felt the need to learn more about this woman. Since she died on January 20 I have been listening to her music and reading about her online, to try to gain an understanding of just how significant she was and the influence she has had on so many people.
Some info from Wikipedia on Etta James:
An American singer whose style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. Starting her career in the mid-1950s, she gained fame with hits such as “Dance With Me, Henry”, “At Last”, “Tell Mama”, and “I’d Rather Go Blind” for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics. She faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album The Seven Year Itch.
James is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and is the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008. Rolling Stone ranked James number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the list of the 100 Greatest Artists.
Etta James had once been considered one of the most overlooked blues and R&B musicians in American music history. It wasn’t until the early 1990s when James began receiving major industry awards from the Grammys and the Blues Foundation that she began to receive wide recognition. In 2011, James was voted one of the 11 Best Singers On Earth by viewers to Btoe, the multimedia Web site founded by Colin Larkin, creator of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music. In recent years, James was seen as bridging the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll. James has influenced a wide variety of American musicians including Diana Ross, Christina Aguilera, Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, and Hayley Williams of Paramore as well as British artists The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Elkie Brooks, Amy Winehouse, Paloma Faith, Joss Stone and Adele.
James encountered a string of legal problems during the early 1970s due to her heroin addiction. She was continuously in and out of rehabilitation centers, including the Tarzana Rehabilitation Center, in Los Angeles, California. Her husband Artis Mills, whom she married in 1969, accepted responsibility when they were both arrested for heroin possession and served a 10-year prison sentence. He was released from prison in 1982 and was still married to James at her death. She was also arrested around the same time for her drug addiction, accused of cashing bad checks, forgery and possession of heroin. In 1974, James was sentenced to drug treatment instead of serving time in prison. She was in the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital for 17 months, at age 36, and went through a great struggle at the start of treatment. She later stated in her autobiography that the time she spent in the hospital changed her life. However, after leaving treatment, her substance abuse continued into the 1980s, after she developed a relationship with a man who was also using drugs. In 1988, at the age of 50, she entered the Betty Ford Center, in Palm Springs, California, for treatment.
She was diagnosed with leukemia in early 2011. The illness became terminal and she died on January 20, 2012, just five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California.
The funeral, presided by Reverend Al Sharpton, took place in Gardena, California eight days after her death. Singers Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera each gave a musical tribute.
She died just three days after Johnny Otis, the man who discovered her in the 1950’s.
The current popular dance-rap song “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida uses a sample from an Etta James song “Something’s Got A Hold On Me”. The song is nothing more than a club banger, an anthem for the fist-pumping crowd. As well as the James sample, the song also samples DJ Avicii’s “Levels” making one reviewer of the song claim that it “makes this club-rap number sound about as authentic as Asda’s tinned spaghetti”. (link).
When I first heard the song, I was impressed with the women’s vocals at the start and throughtout the song singing “ohhh.. sometimes I get a good feeling, yeah. I get a feeling that I’ve never, never, never had before. I get a good feeling, yeah”. What a voice. I made a mental note after hearing the song to find out the sample being used but sadly never did. It was not until Etta James’ death on January 20th that I found out the origin of the vocals.
As Jonnieeb commented on You Tube about Etta James’ song “Something’s Got A Hold On Me”:
Flo Rida - Good Feeling has 46,385,864 views, Avicii - Levels has 13,211,967 views, Pretty Lights - Finally Moving has 7,284,725 views, and this has 1,678,007 views. In my opinion, the biggest travesty is that it’s not the other way round.
So true.
