TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's continue our archive series R&B, rockabilly and early rock 'n' roll with rhythm and blues singer Etta James. She got her start at the age of 15 when she was discovered by Johnny Otis, who we just heard from, and began performing with his traveling R&B review. By age 17, she had her first hit, "Roll With Me Henry," an answer song to Hank Ballard's "Work With Me Annie." After establishing herself as a rhythm and blues star in the late '50s and early '60s, her career was eclipsed by changes in pop music. But later, she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. Younger generations became aware of her for her recording of "At Last" after Beyonce sang that song at President Obama's first inaugural, while he and Michelle Obama had their first dance as president and first lady.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AT LAST")
ETTA JAMES: (Singing) At last, my love has come along. My lonely days are over, and life is like a song. Oh, yeah, yeah. At last...
GROSS: When I spoke with Etta James in 1994, she had just released an album called "Mystery Lady," paying tribute to jazz singer Billie Holiday. The album featured James doing songs Holiday had recorded, like this one, "The Very Thought Of You."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU")
JAMES: (Singing) The very thought of you, and I forget to do the little ordinary things everyone ought to do. I'm living in a kind of daydream. I'm happy as a queen. But foolish though it may seem, to me, that's everything.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: Etta James, welcome to FRESH AIR. Tell me the story of why you wanted to record a Billie Holiday record.
JAMES: Well, I thought that since I grew up and I did my teenage years in San Francisco and my mother was such a Billie Holiday and jazz fan, mostly Billie Holiday, and I kind of - all along, I says, what, jazz? You know? So to me, as a young kid, that was like - it was too disciplined. It was too confining. At least, that's the way I thought. And I thought you had to be really, really cool and had to be -and be bourgeois, you know, to do that. And I didn't want to do that. I mean, I was a sloppy kid with tattoos all over. I wanted to be just wild. I really think that I had to mature. I got to the point where I'm 56 years old. I think it took me maturing.
GROSS: Now, let me ask you this. You grew up in a foster home. I think when your mother had you, she was 14 years old.
JAMES: Right. She was a kid. And, you know, I had feelings about all that kind of stuff for years, and I went to therapy and all about it. But then, as I got older, I realized that she really did the best for me. She put me in a lovely home. The people were, you know, lovely to me. They never said that they were my real parents. I mean, I always knew I had this good-looking, you know, high-stepping mom, and she was, like, only 14 years older than me. And so she did the best for me because if she had tried to take me with her, she was just a child. What would she have done with me? Would I have been singing today? Would I have been anything, you know?
GROSS: What was your foster family like?
JAMES: They were lovely. They were older people, and they had property. And they lived in the Eastside, lower Eastside of Los Angeles. And my grandmother was a church lady, and they believed in - you know, they gave me singing lessons at 5. And so, you know...
GROSS: So when you...
JAMES: I...
GROSS: When you were singing in the church choir, did your grandmother or anyone else in the family get upset if, on your own time, you sang blues or any kind of secular music?
JAMES: No, because when - as long as - my grandmother lived until I was - my grandmother died when I was 12. So I sang gospel music from 5 until 12. And so my grandmother - she never - she wasn't one of those kind of people, because I was already the prodigy child of the church. And - you know, and I did nothing but - and I loved church. I went to Bible camp, and I was a little Christian girl. And until my grandmother passed away at 12 - that is when my mother came back, came to get me, because I had nothing but my grandfather there in the house. And my grandmother - my mother wanted me to be with her. And she came the day of the funeral to pick me up to take me back to San Francisco. So that's - at San - oh, I was listening to little stuff on the sly, but I wasn't interested in secular music. But when - once I got to San Francisco, I - like, I grew horns and a tail.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JAMES: And I really turned into, you know, the real street kid. I was kind of like a runaway, but I had a mother. You know what I mean? And...
GROSS: But...
JAMES: ...I had a place to stay.
GROSS: We're listening to my 1994 interview with singer Etta James. We'll hear more of it after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF COOTIE WILLIAMS' "RINKY DINK")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 1994 interview with the late R&B singer Etta James.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to play one of your rhythm and blues recordings that has a very gospel sound to it. I want to play "Something's Got A Hold On Me" from 1961. Do you think of this as having a gospel sound?
JAMES: Matter of fact, it is a gospel song. We wrote that song, and we adapted it from a gospel song. And the gospel song was "Something's Got a Hold On Me, It Must Be the Lord."
GROSS: And in your song, it must be love.
JAMES: Must be love. Right, right.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JAMES: Now, don't get me because I'm not the one who decided to, but I was one of the writers. I just kind of said, OK, well, let's go, rock 'n' roll.
GROSS: (Laughter) This is Etta James recorded in 1961.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMETHING'S GOT A HOLD OF ME")
JAMES: (Singing) Oh, oh, sometimes I get a good feeling, yeah. (Yeah). I get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before. No, no. (Yeah). I just want to tell you right now that (ooh) I believe, I really do believe that something's got to hold on me here. (Oh, it must be love). Oh, something's got to hold on me right now, child. (Oh, it must be love). Let me think it now, I've got a feeling. I feel so strange. Everything about me seems to have changed. Step by step, I got a brand-new walk. I even sound sweeter when I talk. I said, oh, (oh), oh, (oh), oh (oh), oh, (oh). Hey, hey, yeah, oh, it must be love. (You know it must be love). Let me tell you now...
GROSS: Well, it wasn't too long after you moved in with your mother that you actually went on the road. I mean, Johnny Otis, who had a now-famous rhythm and blues touring review, got you into the show. He discovered you. But how did you audition for him? How did you find him or he find you?
JAMES: Well, kind of, yeah, I think it was kind of a little bit of both, really, but he really found me because I - at that time, my mother - I had ran away from home. And I went and I stayed with two girls, one named Abby and Jean, who later became The Peaches. You know, it used to be Etta James and The Peaches. And we had wrote an answer to the song, "Work With Me, Annie."
GROSS: The Hank Ballard record.
JAMES: Right. So during those days, you know, everybody would make an answer. You said, work with me, Annie, then we said, roll with me, Henry. So one night, the young girl and myself that were - we were the same age. I think we were both like 16, and the older sister was like 24. And she went out to a dance in the Fillmore District, which was, you know, a heavy drag district of San Francisco. She went to see the Johnny Otis band.
And she was there 'cause we couldn't go, and we didn't want to go anyway. We were, like, you know, different from her. We weren't like - she was kind of, like, a groupie kind of a chick. And we were kind of, like, scared, you know, to do that. So all of a sudden, we got a call that night, and it was Abby calling us back to say, listen, guess who I'm with? I'm with Johnny Otis. And we go, oh, Johnny Otis. And she said, yeah, Johnny Otis. I told him that we have a girl group, and he says he wants to hear us. And I said, yeah, right. How does he want to hear us? We're out there in the project in the boonies, right? And she says, oh, he's at the hotel there, and all the band and everything. And we - myself and the girl, we looked at each other and said, yeah, right. Now, we're 15-year-olds, and we're going to go to the hotel with the band and Johnny Otis?
GROSS: (Laughter).
JAMES: Johnny Otis was, like, about a 34-, 35-year-old man. So we said, oh, no, that's all right. That's all right. We'll just - we'll cool that and everything. So Johnny Otis snatched the phone from her. And it was Johnny Otis. You know, we heard that voice, you know? And he said, hi, how are you doing? And we said, oh, we're doing all right. He says, I heard - I hear you guys got a great group. I hear you got a song, a couple of songs, and I'd like to hear you. And he says, how about catching a cab? I'll pay the cab fare, and I'll meet you out front. And I said, oh, no. Now, this is getting heavy. This older man is going to, you know, take us in a - send us in a cab. So we said, OK, let's go on. Johnny - he sounded pretty sincere. And he said, don't worry, nobody's going to bother you. He says, OK.
So we got up and got dressed, got in the cab and went down there. Sure enough, as we pulled up, we saw this tall man. You know, we'd all seen pictures of Johnny Otis with the nice hair, and he looked like a tall kind of a, like, a Creole man with a nice mustache and a beard, and he - you know, and the nice pompadour hair. And he was standing there all stately, and he had two or three more guys with him. One guy was his manager, was a much older man. And when we got there, oh, I'm glad to see you. And come on up, and let's see what - let's hear you. So we went upstairs to his room, and we sang, "How Deep Is The Ocean" and "For All We Know" and "Street Of Dreams." And...
GROSS: So you auditioned for Johnny Otis. He liked your singing, I suppose.
JAMES: Right.
GROSS: And invited you to go on the tour. But you were still a minor. Did he have to get your mother's permission?
JAMES: Well, that was a trick there. My mother - I knew my mother wasn't going to let me go, but I told him. He says, how old are you? I said 18, which he knew that was a lie. And he says, well, you know what? I would like to take you guys to Los Angeles tomorrow to make a record. And he says, can I speak with your mother? I said, no, I can't find her right now. She's working. And he says, well, can you go home and get permission from your mother, get something in writing, stating that your - that you can travel, and give me your mother's address and phone number and all this stuff and saying that you can travel, and you're allowed to travel with me and have her to sign it and date it. I said, oh, yeah, I can do that. So sure enough, that's what I did. I went home. I wrote the note (laughter).
GROSS: Oh, I see. Right. I see.
JAMES: And I brought the note back with a tiny little bag, a little plastic bag or something with some clothes in it, and myself and the two girls got on Johnny's bus, and we split to LA.
GROSS: So why don't we hear the first song that you recorded? And this was the first song recorded after going on the road with Johnny Otis. And it's "Roll With Me, Henry," also called "Wallflower" (laughter).
JAMES: And called "Dance With Me, Henry."
GROSS: Yeah, called "Dance With Me, Henry" also. And this is Etta James.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROLL WITH ME HENRY")
RICHARD BERRY: (Singing) Hey, baby. What do I have to do to make you love me, too?
JAMES: (Singing) You got to roll with me, Henry.
BERRY: (Singing) All right, baby.
JAMES: (Singing) Roll with me, Henry.
BERRY: (Singing) Don't mean maybe.
JAMES: (Singing) Roll with me, Henry.
BERRY: (Singing) Any ole time.
JAMES: (Singing) Roll with me, Henry.
BERRY: (Singing) Don't change my mind.
JAMES: (Singing) Roll with me, Henry.
BERRY: (Singing) All right.
JAMES: (Singing) You better roll it while the rolling is on. Roll on, roll on, roll on. While the cats are balling, you better stop your stalling. It's intermission in a minute, so you better get with it. Roll with me, Henry. You better roll it while the rolling is on. Roll on, roll on, roll on.
GROSS: Now, after you recorded this, Georgia Gibbs did a cover recording of this called "Dance With Me Henry." And...
JAMES: Right.
GROSS: Was that supposed to be the tamer version, the...
JAMES: Yeah, well, you know, during those days, you weren't allowed to say roll because roll was, like, a vulgar word. You know what I mean? Think about it.
GROSS: For sex? Yeah.
JAMES: They - yeah. Think about it. They would probably burn Prince at the stake, right?
GROSS: (Laughter).
JAMES: But you couldn't say roll. So rather than - they banned my record from the air. And what happened - what we had to do was sell it underground, and not only that, change the title to "Wallflower." And then when Georgia Gibbs did it, she just made the "Dance With Me Henry" so that, you know, all the kids could go buy it. And they - you know, they could take it home and, you know, listen to it, because their parents weren't going to go for no roll. Are you kidding? Roll with me? How do you roll with somebody?
GROSS: We're listening to my 1994 interview with singer Etta James. We'll continue the interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 1994 interview with the late R&B singer Etta James.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: At some point in your career, you started dressing in evening gowns for performances and dying your hair blonde. Tell me how you created that on-stage image for yourself.
JAMES: I think probably by me being so young. And I was oversized, like I am now, but, I mean, I had a real nice figure and I was tall. And I remember this singer Joyce Bryant. She was a Black singer, and I always admired her. And I had two role models. I liked Joyce Bryant because she wore fishtail gowns, sequined fishtail gowns, and she was Black and she had the nerve to wear platinum hair. And then I also loved Jane Mansfield because Jane Mansfield had the blonde hair and had the - like, the poochy lips and the mole and all this.
So I think what I did was kind of combined. My mother had bleached my hair carrot red at one point, and then I said, well, maybe that's not flamboyant enough. So I just kind of went into Detroit one day, and one of the fellows over there said, oh, Miss James. Oh, why, you would probably look fabulous with platinum hair. So he bleached my hair blonde, and it looked good. And so then I started - what I was doing was trying to be a glamour girl because I had been a tomboy most of the time, and I wanted to look grown. You know, I wanted to wear tall, high-heeled shoes and fishtail gowns and big, long rhinestone earrings, you know?
GROSS: So how long did you dye your hair?
JAMES: How - for how long?
GROSS: Yeah.
JAMES: I think, well, most of my career. It was blonde, platinum blonde all the way, I would think, up into the '70s. Maybe the '72 or '73, something like that.
GROSS: And why'd you stop?
JAMES: Well, I - you know, I wanted to - I think I - I think - one thing about it, I think things had changed. I know things had changed. And my career hadn't - wasn't happening. And I didn't think that I needed to be that - you know, that - to attract that much attention. Another thing - I was on drugs at that time, and I think I really wanted a low profile.
GROSS: Was it difficult for you to give up drugs?
JAMES: Not when I got down to - you know, I had given it up many a time. You know, I'd kicked my habits many a time. But when I went in 1974, I gave heroin up. I was on methadone for maybe three or four years before that. So I had a couple of things to give up.
GROSS: Was it hard to make a comeback after you started - stopped using?
JAMES: No, not really, because when I stopped using, I - you know, I wasn't the kind that went around and wanted people to pat me on the back about it. It's just that I just picked up the - you know, picked up the ball and started running with it. The thing was, when I went to this rehabilitation center, I was around nothing but a lot of white kids. And the thing were, they were all younger than I was. And I remember on Saturdays, they would play all these great rock 'n' roll records. The thing was, I was doing R&B, remember. But the ZZ Tops and the Rod Stewarts and The Rolling Stones and all those people - I never really - I was busy using drugs. I wasn't there when Woodstock - I was there in New York when Woodstock was going on, but I didn't want to go to Woodstock. I was - I'd rather - I would rather go to Harlem, you know?
And when I was in the program, on Saturdays, we'd be cleaning up. They would be playing songs from all these people, and I would say, ooh, man, that music is really happening. And then what really made me think it is because my song "I'd Rather Go Blind" - they had a version of it by Rod Stewart. And they kept saying, hey, this is the song you wrote. Listen. And I said, all right. And then when - so when - while I was in that program, they would take me out to kind of - with support to kind of do little gigs here and there. We went to Africa to do the Black Festival there when Muhammad Ali and George Foreman were supposed to fight. We went to the American Song Festival. And so my therapist, you know, psychologist was taking me around, trying to just you know, dip me in a little bit to let me know, you know, this is the business here that you've been in all your life. Now, what's going to be different about this when you come out? What are you going to do different? Because you're going to get thrown right back in there. So we would just do test runs and things.
GROSS: In 1978, you opened in some cities for The Rolling Stones on their tour. Were the Stones fans of yours?
JAMES: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Matter of fact, when I was in rehab at the same rehab center in the '70s, '74 and '75, I got a letter from Keith Richards that had told - that had said to me that they were getting ready to do a tour. You know, that they had had Tina Turner, and they had had B.B. King, and they had had different people on their tour. And they had wanted me on their tour. And the letter that they wrote came to the rehabilitation center, and the therapist got the letter. And he called me to his office and read the letter. And the letter said that they - he said, we would like to have you on tour with us. We love your music. And he says, but what you're doing right now is more important than what we could ever do with you, but we'll be sure to come back and get you when you're ready. And that was really cool. That was when they came back in '78 and kept their word.
GROSS: I'd like to close our interview with another selection from your new album of songs that were recorded by Billie Holiday. I thought we could play "How Deep Is The Ocean," since this is one of the songs you sang many years ago when you auditioned for Johnny Otis. What do you think is the difference between what the song means to you now and what it meant to you then, and how you sing it now and how you sung it then?
JAMES: I think probably it's because now I really understand. You know what I mean? I understand what I'm singing about. You know, songs that I get - any song that I decide to sing or a song that someone sends to me or recommends, I like to be able to relate to that song. Not just, you know, have a song there that talks about, come fly me to the moon, let me dangle on the stars. That's not my cup of tea. That's not real. I want to sing real stuff. I want to know what I'm singing about, and I want to be able to really relate to that. And I think that's what I can do now. I think that's what I definitely do. Matter of fact, I know I do.
GROSS: Etta James, it's been a pleasure. I want to thank you a lot for talking with us.
JAMES: Thank you so much, Terry.
GROSS: My interview with Etta James was recorded in 1994.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN")
JAMES: (Singing) How much do I love you? I'll tell you no lie. How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? How many times a day do I think of you? How many roses are sprinkled with dew? Ooh. How far would I travel to be where you are? How far is the journey from here to a star? And if I ever lost you, how much would I cry? How deep is the ocean, baby? How high is the sky?
GROSS: Tomorrow, as we continue our archive series R&B, rockabilly, and early rock 'n' roll, we'll feature interviews with two R&B singers from the '50s and '60s - Ruth Brown, whose recordings include "Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean" - and LaVern Baker, whose hits included "Bumble Bee," "Tweedlee Dee" and "Jim Dandy." I hope you'll join us. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN")
JAMES: (Singing) Ooh. How far would I travel to be where you are? How far is the journey from here to a star? And if I ever lost you... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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