Someone's Got a Hold on Me
by modern living editor Jason Capodimonte
Reviewed in this article: Paul James and Etta James at the Toronto Jazz Festival, June 27, 2006In the old days you used to go to performances by Etta James because she's a great singer (great is not a word I use loosely, by the way). These days, though, it appears many people go to see her for other reasons as well.
I have seen Ms James only twice, once in July, 1986, and not again till last night (June 27, 2006, almost twenty years later). Some differences were immediately apparent.
The first time I saw Ms James she was performing at Albert's Hall, a now defunct pub upstairs at the Brunswick Hotel in Toronto. Albert's Hall was a storied place. During her performance last night Ms James mentioned that she was always impressed by the number of fights there. Last night she was performing at the Hummingbird Centre, a 3,200-seat concert hall in downtown Toronto which has for years been the home of the National Ballet and the Canadian Opera Company.
The first time I saw her there were no scalpers, but there were plenty last night. I gathered from the opening remarks that this was a first for the Toronto Jazz Festival, too.
Two other differences were that this time there was an opening act – Paul James (no relation), a white blues performer highly regarded in central Ontario – and that the show started on time. Shows in bars tend to open late to get a few extra booze orders in before the entertainment starts.
One of the duties of an opening act is to set a standard which the headliner can surpass. Mr. James performed this duty well. Whatever he may do as a headliner, as an opener for Etta James he presented a completely sanitized version of the blues, including a version of :"Shake Your Moneymaker" suitable for performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
However, late in his set we did get a glimmer of what Mr. James may be like as a headliner when, as part of some shtick involving playing slide guitar with a beer bottle, his playing became both earthier and more coherent. The audience responded appreciatively to the sudden intrusion of blues feeling into the set, which of course prepared them for Etta James.
After a short break (another difference, since bars like to drag the interval out, too) the headliner's band appeared and performed a couple of amorphous soul instrumentals. And then the headliner came out. And her cheerleaders!
Ms James was aided by two young men who appeared occasionally throughout her act to exhort us to clap in rhythm. One of them introduced the star, and began his introduction by demanding that we stand up. Well, it was Etta James, so we did.
As the result of gastric bypass surgery occasioned by knee and mobility problems, Ms James is now about half the size she was in the 1980s, or less, but her voice is as big as ever. Unfortunately, she seemed not to have been around for the sound checks, since whenever she sang at full volume her voice was distorted.
Nevertheless, the sound problems weren't overwhelming, and Ms James proceeded to give an enjoyable performance. Unfortunately, enjoyment was sometimes difficult because of another difference from her earlier performance – this time the audience included many people who had come to show Etta their love for her.
Ms James had clearly expected this. She sang from a chair (another difference) and spent much of the time in the chair striking ironically imperial poses. She also dealt graciously with the professions of love shouted from the audience, and sang determinedly through the piercing shrieks which were apparently another expression of this love..
Back in the 1980s people cast Ms James in the role of Great But Neglected Singer, while today she is cast as The Grand Old Lady of Song. Getting that role when your most popular song came to the public's attention through commercials is quite an achievement, but her winning the role seems to have been bad for many of her fans' characters.
I think Etta James is the greatest singer on the face of the earth, but I don't love her. I've never even been introduced to the woman. And if I did love her, I wouldn't scream while she was trying to sing.
This phenomenon first came to public attention during Frank Sinatra's heyday, when teenaged girls swooned over him. Later teen idols provoked similar outbursts, but at least through the 1960s it was confined to teenagers. Then in the 1970s the phenomenon started to move into a younger age group as teenaged girls came to be under less pressure to repress their sexuality. By the 1990s it had become largely a pre-teen phenomenon.
But now it's coming back, among adults. Wentworth Sutton has argued in another article here that electronic technology has reduced the amount of contact that people have with other people. Perhaps the average adult life has become so emotionally impoverished that many adults fill their emotional needs by conceiving passions for singers of emotional songs.
Or maybe, as Wentworth argues in the same article, adulthood has now become defined as childhood with extra added sex and violence, so adults are just emotionally more immature these days.
Or maybe there's some other explanation. Anyway, Ms James' new roles as cultural icon and love object seem to have led to some changes in her program. Her selection of songs was not as adventurous as it was back at Albert's Hall, and neither was her interpretation of the songs she selected. One of the highlights of the first performance of hers I saw was a stunning (and long) interpretation of Swamp Dogg's obscure (and pretty unusual) "I Was Born Blue." She introduced this song by saying "You're going to think this song sucks," and the first time through I was thinking "Yeah, that pretty well sucks." By the time she was done with it, however, I was sitting there slack-jawed, in awe at the artistry she had used to get us to appreciate the truth that Swamp Dogg had written into what at first appears to be a trite and peculiar little lyric.
Last night, she sang her better-known songs and some conventional numbers recorded by other artists (introducing one of them with a gracious acknowledgment of the influence of Johnny "Guitar" Watson). Of course, when you're only doing one set you have fewer options than when you're doing two, as she did back in the bar days. Still, the appearance of a horn section on stage last night led me to hope that she would sing "Security," but no luck there. Nor did she sing "Sunday Kind of Love," "Tell Mama," "Something's Got a Hold on Me," or "Roll With Me, Henry," songs which may have seemed too early for the younger members of the audience. And some day I'd like to hear her sing "(Romancing) In the Dark," but that's just me, I guess.
But of course even when she's not being adventurous Ms James can sing the songs she chooses better than anyone else can. The phrase consummate artistry has become pretty hackneyed, but it perfectly describes what Ms James does. Even with a defective sound system and shrieking fans, she gave a performance that I do not expect to see equalled. The only person who could conceivably do better than Ms James did last night is Ms James herself.
Ms James starts with an exceptional voice, and in particular a huge dynamic range which she exploits effectively. She also employs masterly vocal technique to convey the meaning of a song's lyrics. Her performances are not merely displays of virtuosity but effective emotional and intellectual realizations of songwriters' intentions. She's playing in Montreal next week, and if you missed this show and feel like driving there to see her, I wouldn't blame you.
After she left the stage her cheerleaders, deservedly doubtful of the ability of Toronto fans to take the initiative in calling for an encore (wouldn't want to inconvenience Etta, after all), led the crowd in chanting her name, after which she returned and sang "Sugar on the Floor." Her rendition was similar to her recording of "Only Women Bleed," which is really good.
In the end I have a duty to forgive the screaming love junkies. We live in an age in which we are encouraged to admire whatever marketers for transnational corporations tell us to admire, and in which millions do just that. Ms James' love-crazed devotees choose instead to love the Good. In their own enthusiastic way they are setting a Good Example for others. More power to them, and long life to Etta James.
[Update: Canoe also reviewed this concert; you can read the review by clicking here (the link will open in a new window). The Toronto Sun reviewed this concert, but now wants ten bucks from you for the privilege of reading it online. In the Toronto Star, Ashante Infantry reported that Ms James drew by far the biggest crowd at the Toronto Jazz Festival (3,300, which includes standing room). Reviews of Ms James' performance in Ottawa report that she sang "Tell Mama" there.][Further update: For another review, click here.]
Someone's Got a Hold on Me © John FitzGerald, 2006
