Friday, December 16, 2016

*Etta James Is In The House- Again

Click on the title to link to YouTube's film clip of Etta James performing "Born Under A Bad Sign".

CD Review

Life, Love And The Blues, Etta James, Sbme Special Mkts., 1998




The name Etta James goes back in my memory to associations with my first listening to rock music on the old transistor radio in the late 1950’s. At that time, I believe, her music was in the old doo wop tradition of the late 1950’s, a music that I was fairly soon to dismiss out of hand as the ‘bubble gum’ music that was prevalent in that period between the height of Elvis/Jerry Lee/Carl Perkins classic rock & rock and the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. That is where things were left until a dozen years ago or more when Etta ‘stole the show’ at the Newport Folk Festival. Well, we live and learn.

The stand outs here include: the blues rocker “Born Under A Bad Sign,” Willie Dixon’s classic “Spoonful,” and Etta’s own version of the Dixon/Muddy Waters classic, “Hoochie Goochie Gal”. Not her best album, by any means, but solid.


Born Under A Bad Sign
by Booker T. Jones / William Bell


Born under a bad sign
I been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all

Hard luck and trouble is my only friend
I been on my own ever since I was ten
Born under a bad sign
I been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all

I can't read, haven't learned how to write
My whole life has been one big fight
Born under a bad sign
I been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all

I ain't lyin'
If it wasn't for bad luck
I wouldn't have no kind-a luck
If it wasn't for real bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all

Wine and women is all I crave
A big legged woman is
gonna carry me to my grave
Born under a bad sign
I been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck,
I wouldn't have no luck at all

Yeah, my bad luck boy
Been havin' bad luck all of my days, yes

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