Etta James – Queen of Soul

Etta James for this Monday Lunchroom – recorded at the 1977 Montreux Jazz Festival on July 9, 1977 and broadcast by RTS in Switzerland.

While we try and figure out which way this week is going, it never hurts to have a few words of comfort from the Queen of Soul herself.

Etta James has been an institution since the 1950s, when she started her career in 1954. Etta James frequently performed in Nashville’s R&B clubs, collectively known in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s as the Chitlin’ Circuit.[1] She sang in various genres, including gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, rock and roll and soul and gained fame with hits such as “The Wallflower” (1955), “At Last” (1960), “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” (1962), “Tell Mama” and “I’d Rather Go Blind” (both 1967). 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 (1988).

James’s deep and earthy voice is considered to have bridged the gap between R&B and rock and roll. She won three Grammy Awards for her albums (2005 – Best Traditional Blues Album for Blues to the Bone; 2004 – Best Contemporary Blues Album for Let’s Roll and 1995 – Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday) 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. She also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.  Rolling Stone magazine ranked James number 22 on its 2008 list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”; she was also ranked number 62 in its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time“.  Billboard magazine’s 2015 list of the “35 Greatest R&B Artists of All Time” also included James, whose “gutsy, take-no-prisoner vocals colorfully interpreted everything from blues and R&B/soul to rock n’roll, jazz and gospel.”  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named her “one of the greatest voices of her century” and “forever the matriarch of blues.”

Much as I’m not a fan of the ” . . .Greatest What ever’s of All Time” ranking that is more baffling than real, citing Etta James as one of the Greatest singers/artists,R&B artists makes more sense – she really was a force of nature and she most definitely had one of the great voices in American music.

If you’ve never heard her before, or just heard about her but haven’t ever heard her in concert, check this gig out. The only shame is, there aren’t live recordings around of her “Chitlin’ Circuit” gigs in the 1950s (so far as I know) – but you never know. In the meantime, dive into this Montreux Festival gig and take you mind off things for the next 38 minutes.