The One True Diva
by modern living editor Jason Capodimonte
This piece was originally published on our old site in 2000, but for some reason has never been posted here before. Over the last five years Ms James has picked up some important honours, but she still is not the superstar she deserves to be. O tempora! O mores!History since the second world war is the history of the decline of popular music. Pop music superstars of previous centuries include Guillaume de Machaut, Handel, Mozart, and Paganini. Not only did the public admire the music of these stars, they played it. Mozart's piano quartets, for example, were written for amateurs to play at home.In the twentieth century popular music began for some reason to be produced for young people. Nevertheless, before the second world war adolescent fans of popular music turned out in droves for artists of the stature of Benny Goodman. After the war, though, record companies discovered that records were largely bought by teenage girls, and the rot set in.
In short, the companies began to record pretty boys singing sentimentally romantic lyrics. Elvis Presley sang Love Me Tender. Frankie Avalon sang Venus. Those cuddly moptops the Beatles sang She Loves You before screaming crowds of desperately infatuated teenage girls. By 1963 popular music had become a matter of moon-June-spoon lyrics sung to melodies of basic structure.
The postwar United States, though, also started giving its black citizens more rights. Black Americans started getting a chance in many previously fields of endeavour previously restricted to whites, and recordings by black artists began to be heard on the same radio program with recordings by white artists (in earlier years black records had been re-recorded by white artists – that is, "covered" – and the white records played on white radio stations).
Although the companies which recorded black artists also promoted records by handsome young men, their records had to compete in a market with higher standards of musical performance than those that prevailed in the white market. Consequently, black music dominated for several years, including the great age of soul music in the mid to late sixties.
By the mid-seventies though, popular music had been reduced to its previous low standards. Wilson Pickett was got to sing Sugar Sugar, and popular music once again became the music of white teenagers. One hoped that musical standards had reached their nadir, but they hadn't. These days much popular music, if not most, is intended for preteen girls.
Naturally, given the abominable standards of both popular music and of musical instruction in the public schools, the postwar generations have not on the whole acquired sophisticated musical tastes. The continuing success of the Rolling Stones shows how unsophisticated the contemporary consumer of popular music is. Reasonable, intelligent people pay good money to hear the lads butcher songs they've been playing for close to forty years.
But great musicians still walk among us, and now I'm going to tell you about one of them. She is a woman for whom a claim can legitimately be made that she is the greatest of living singers. No, she is not an opera singer. She is, in fact, Etta James.
Such is the contemporary state of musical ignorance that most people have probably heard Ms James, if at all, only in commercials, notably for Jaguar (whose commercials have featured her stunning rendition of "At Last") and Pepsi-Cola (a bowdlerized but still intense rendition of "I Just Want to be Loved by You").
Ms James released her first record in 1955 at the age of 15. This was "The Wallflower," an answer song, also known as "Roll with Me, Henry," which she wrote to the tune of Hank Ballard's "Work with Me, Annie." This song was later covered for the white market by Georgia Gibbs, as "Dance with Me Henry." According to legend the racy lyric of Ms James' version caused a scandal, but in comparison to the lyric of "Work with Me, Annie" it sounds like "The Teddy Bears' Picnic."
"The Wallflower" was an upbeat twelve-bar blues. That of course was the format of much early rock and roll – for example, "Hound Dog," "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," and "Tutti Frutti." When sung by black artists, however, it was often referred to as gutbucket rhythm and blues. What distinguishes "The Wallflower" are the striking timbre of Ms James voice and the confidence, ease, and exquisite timing with which she delivers the lyric.
She had some success with "Good Rockin' Daddy" in late 1955, but then obtained little airplay till 1960. In all her records of the 1950s she demonstrates a striking, powerful voice and an aggressive confident attack. My praise of these records would probably be greater were it not that, good as they are, they pale in comparison with her later work.
In the 1960s Ms James performed in a number of styles – rhythm and blues, blues, jazz, and soul. In an interview in Soul Survivor in 1985 she suggested that her singing in a wide variety of styles may have prevented the companies for which she recorded from finding a successful way to market her. She did have considerable success in the early and mid-sixties, though, although chiefly in the rhythm and blues market.
In 1960 she released her masterpiece, "At Last." Other hit songs of this period included "Trust in Me," "All I Could Do was Cry," "My Dearest Darling," and "Tell Mama." Ms James had by 1960 developed an accomplished vocal technique, and her records of the 1960s attest to a powerful voice used with precise control and exquisite musical taste. She uses melisma (the singing of a single syllable of the lyric over more than one note) with ease (and, most importantly, taste), varies her vibrato effectively, and faultlessly accomplishes sudden large changes in the volume of her voice. She has attributed much of her success in this period to working with sophisticated producers and arrangers like Ralph Bass and Riley Hampton.
In addition to singing with accomplished technique, Ms James sang with intense emotion which neared but never crossed the line into sentimentality. Her interpretations were adult and evoked adult emotions rather than the sentimentalized adolescent emotions which most pop singers express and seek to evoke. She has attributed the soulfulness of her singing to her origins in gospel music (she received her early vocal training at St. Paul's Baptist Church in Los Angeles, home of the Clara Ward Singers) and to having grown up listening to the records of Billie Holiday.
But she last had a hit record in the 1960s. Her hits were, as I have noted, also primarily in the rhythm and blues market. She has continued to record, but has become primarily a concert artist.
Ms James' live performances are the most impressive I have ever witnessed. They are stunning displays of virtuosity. For example, she may start singing a song in the manner of Sarah Vaughan, then sing for a while like Billy Holiday, then sing like Etta James. She has also incorporated manipulation of timbre into her singing. In concert she is simply overwhelming, and you will spend the next few days day after watching her in concert telling everyone you can find about the great show you just saw.
An idea of Ms James' live performances can be obtained from recordings of her in concert with Eddie Vinson in 1986 (they are listed in the discography below). Her repertoire in this performance ranges from "Lover Man" to "Sweet Little Angel" to "Only Women Bleed" to "He's Got the Whole World in his Hands." "Diva" Tina Turner couldn't do that, "diva" Mariah Carey couldn't do that, and we all know that "diva" Cher couldn't in her wildest dreams do that, but Etta James does it. In person.
Etta James is a virtuoso singer with a striking voice who tastefully, expressively, and innovatively interprets material from a wide range of genres. If that doesn't appeal to you then you deserve to be sitting there listening to your Céline Dion CDs.
Selected CDs:
R & B Dynamite, Ace CDCH 210
At Last!, MCA CHD-9266
These Foolish Things, MCA/Chess CHMD 9354
(with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson) Blues in the Night – The Early Show, Fantasy FCD-9647-2
(with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson) Blues in the Night – The Late Show, Fantasy FCD-9655-2
Mystery Lady, Private Music 01005-82114-2
The One True Diva © John FitzGerald, 2000, 2005
