Click on the headline to link to an article on the passing of blues great Etta James.
From the American Left History blog:
Thursday, July 02, 2009
"Come To Mama"- The Blues Of Etta James
This is a little quick entry for a blues queen that I will write more, much more, about later in connection with a review of "Cadillac Blues", a film based on the history of Chicago's Chess Records that gave Etta her start. Feast on.
********
Here is a little tribute to a kindred spirit that the old time blues singer, Sippy Wallace, would call "sister".
"Come To Mama”- The Blues Of Ms. Etta James
Etta James And The Roots Band: Burning Down The House, Etta James and various artists, NTSC, 2001
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.
Here we have Etta, in a 2001 concert being recorded for this album, doing all the songs that she is justly famous for like “Born Blue” and “I Rather Be A Blind Girl” as well as some nice covers in her own style of the likes of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”. Just a nice solid performance with a good back up band, including a couple of her sons.
******
Etta James- "Come To Mama" Lyrics
If the Sun goes behind the clouds
And you feel it's gonna rain
And if the moon ain't shinin bright
And the Stars, the Stars
Won't shine for you tonight
If your life is hard to understand
And your lovelife is out of hand
Oh, Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
If you need, if you need a satisfyer
Let me be, let me be your pacifyer
And if you feel, feelin like a horse
Chompin at the bit
Call my number 777-6969, I'll give you a fix
Cause I've got your favorite toy
Guaranteed to bring you joy
Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Lead Solo
If your soul is on fire
Let me take you to the corner of the sky
Hey - Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Come to Mama
Come on come on to Mama
COME ON TO MAMA.....
Showing posts with label sippy wallace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sippy wallace. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday, July 02, 2009
*"Come To Mama"- The Blues Of Etta James
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Etta James Performing "Tell Mama".
This is a little quick entry for a blues queen that I will write more, much more, about later in connection with a review of "Cadillac Blues", a film based on the history of Chicago's Chess Records that gave Etta her start. Feast on.
*********
Here is a little tribute to a kindred spirit that the old time blues singer, Sippy Wallace, would call "sister".
"Come To Mama”- The Blues Of Ms. Etta James
Etta James And The Roots Band: Burning Down The House, Etta James and various artists, NTSC, 2001
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.
Here we have Etta, in a 2001 concert being recorded for this album, doing all the songs that she is justly famous for like “Born Blue” and “I Rather Be A Blind Girl” as well as some nice covers in her own style of the likes of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”. Just a nice solid performance with a good back up band, including a couple of her sons.
Etta James- "Come To Mama" Lyrics
If the Sun goes behind the clouds
And you feel it's gonna rain
And if the moon ain't shinin bright
And the Stars, the Stars
Won't shine for you tonight
If your life is hard to understand
And your lovelife is out of hand
Oh, Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
If you need, if you need a satisfyer
Let me be, let me be your pacifyer
And if you feel, feelin like a horse
Chompin at the bit
Call my number 777-6969, I'll give you a fix
Cause I've got your favorite toy
Guaranteed to bring you joy
Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Lead Solo
+ de parolesAt Last I Just Want To Make Love To You Stormy Weather (keeps Rainin' All The Time) All I Could Do Was Cry Don't Cry Baby Hickory Dickory Dock Oh Happy Day Amen, This Little Light of Mine A Sunday Kind Of Love A Change Is Gonna Do Me Good
If your soul is on fire
Let me take you to the corner of the sky
Hey - Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Come to Mama
Come on come on to Mama
COME ON TO MAMA.....
This is a little quick entry for a blues queen that I will write more, much more, about later in connection with a review of "Cadillac Blues", a film based on the history of Chicago's Chess Records that gave Etta her start. Feast on.
*********
Here is a little tribute to a kindred spirit that the old time blues singer, Sippy Wallace, would call "sister".
"Come To Mama”- The Blues Of Ms. Etta James
Etta James And The Roots Band: Burning Down The House, Etta James and various artists, NTSC, 2001
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.
Here we have Etta, in a 2001 concert being recorded for this album, doing all the songs that she is justly famous for like “Born Blue” and “I Rather Be A Blind Girl” as well as some nice covers in her own style of the likes of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”. Just a nice solid performance with a good back up band, including a couple of her sons.
Etta James- "Come To Mama" Lyrics
If the Sun goes behind the clouds
And you feel it's gonna rain
And if the moon ain't shinin bright
And the Stars, the Stars
Won't shine for you tonight
If your life is hard to understand
And your lovelife is out of hand
Oh, Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
If you need, if you need a satisfyer
Let me be, let me be your pacifyer
And if you feel, feelin like a horse
Chompin at the bit
Call my number 777-6969, I'll give you a fix
Cause I've got your favorite toy
Guaranteed to bring you joy
Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Lead Solo
+ de parolesAt Last I Just Want To Make Love To You Stormy Weather (keeps Rainin' All The Time) All I Could Do Was Cry Don't Cry Baby Hickory Dickory Dock Oh Happy Day Amen, This Little Light of Mine A Sunday Kind Of Love A Change Is Gonna Do Me Good
If your soul is on fire
Let me take you to the corner of the sky
Hey - Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Come to Mama
Come on come on to Mama
COME ON TO MAMA.....
Saturday, January 10, 2009
*"Women Be Wise- Don't Advertise Your Man"- Blues Singer Sippy Wallace
DVD REVIEWS
Sippy Wallace, Volume 2, The Complete Works, 1925-1945, Sippy Wallace, Document Records, 1995
Women Be Wise, Sippy Wallace, Alligator Records, 1992
Okay, okay before we even start here let’s get something straight. I took more than my share of politically correct abuse from my feminist friends, including my companion, when I titled one of my reviews of the work of the legendary blues singer Skip James after the title of one of his songs- "I’d Rather Be The Devil Than Be That Woman’s Man". As penance I noted that the more contemporary blues singer/songwriter Rory Block covered that song and changed the words to "I’d Rather Be The Devil That Be A Woman To That Man". So here, for the politically pure of heart, or their wannabes, you can switch to suit your sexual or gender orientation.
But enough of that, for now because we have the serious business of discussing the blues, and an important component of that genre is the work of the "Texas Nightingale"- Sippy Wallace. Frankly, readers if you are going to discuss the blues you have to take the lyrics the way you find them and work around that. There is not a damn politically correct thing about them from male or female singers. Whiskey or dope. Mistreatin’ man or woman. Hard luck, bad luck or no luck. Anger, murderous intent, hostility. This is the language of the blues. If you want to clean it up go to the modern folk music section. But, my friends then you would be missing some very hard driving, evocative music from down at the base of society in Jim Crow days, especially when done by one of the classic blues singers.
Classic blues singers? Those are, mainly, the black female singers of the 1920’s, most famously the likes of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, who played mostly to black audiences in the South (although not solely, witness the career of Ethel Waters). Sippy fits right in there. You may not know her because her career was cut short (for a while) by a return to her Baptist gospel roots in order to get away from “the devil’s music”. This struggle has been a gnawing tension in the fate of more than one accomplished blues singer although usually, as in the case of Howlin’ Wolf and Son House among others, the devil 'wins'.
Sippy’s story has a nice ending though. She was “discovered” by the great folk/blues/country singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt (who sat at the knee of Mississippi Fred McDowell to learn her craft) in the mid-1960s after covering the above-mentioned "Women Be Wise". Sippy then went on to have a successful revival until her death. That also allows this reviewer to kill two birds with one stone. This review is serving to comment on two Sippy CDs. One, "Sippy Wallace, Volume 2", The Complete Works, 1925-1945, Sippy Wallace, Document Records, 1995. The other, "Women Be Wise", Sippy Wallace, Alligator Records, 1992 so that one can compare quality of the two periods and the presentation of the same song in each period. I am more favorably impressed by her later work, partially because the technical quality of the recordings is better later but also partially because her voice is better later. But you decide. Check these out from Sippy Wallace- "Advise Blues", "Special Delivery Blues", "I’m A Mighty Tight Woman", "Lazy Man Blues", and "Bedroom Blues". Check these from "Women Be Wise"-"Women Be Wise", "Special Delivery Blues", "Caldonia Blues" (definitely), and "Up Country Blues".
Sippy Wallace, Volume 2, The Complete Works, 1925-1945, Sippy Wallace, Document Records, 1995
Women Be Wise, Sippy Wallace, Alligator Records, 1992
Okay, okay before we even start here let’s get something straight. I took more than my share of politically correct abuse from my feminist friends, including my companion, when I titled one of my reviews of the work of the legendary blues singer Skip James after the title of one of his songs- "I’d Rather Be The Devil Than Be That Woman’s Man". As penance I noted that the more contemporary blues singer/songwriter Rory Block covered that song and changed the words to "I’d Rather Be The Devil That Be A Woman To That Man". So here, for the politically pure of heart, or their wannabes, you can switch to suit your sexual or gender orientation.
But enough of that, for now because we have the serious business of discussing the blues, and an important component of that genre is the work of the "Texas Nightingale"- Sippy Wallace. Frankly, readers if you are going to discuss the blues you have to take the lyrics the way you find them and work around that. There is not a damn politically correct thing about them from male or female singers. Whiskey or dope. Mistreatin’ man or woman. Hard luck, bad luck or no luck. Anger, murderous intent, hostility. This is the language of the blues. If you want to clean it up go to the modern folk music section. But, my friends then you would be missing some very hard driving, evocative music from down at the base of society in Jim Crow days, especially when done by one of the classic blues singers.
Classic blues singers? Those are, mainly, the black female singers of the 1920’s, most famously the likes of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, who played mostly to black audiences in the South (although not solely, witness the career of Ethel Waters). Sippy fits right in there. You may not know her because her career was cut short (for a while) by a return to her Baptist gospel roots in order to get away from “the devil’s music”. This struggle has been a gnawing tension in the fate of more than one accomplished blues singer although usually, as in the case of Howlin’ Wolf and Son House among others, the devil 'wins'.
Sippy’s story has a nice ending though. She was “discovered” by the great folk/blues/country singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt (who sat at the knee of Mississippi Fred McDowell to learn her craft) in the mid-1960s after covering the above-mentioned "Women Be Wise". Sippy then went on to have a successful revival until her death. That also allows this reviewer to kill two birds with one stone. This review is serving to comment on two Sippy CDs. One, "Sippy Wallace, Volume 2", The Complete Works, 1925-1945, Sippy Wallace, Document Records, 1995. The other, "Women Be Wise", Sippy Wallace, Alligator Records, 1992 so that one can compare quality of the two periods and the presentation of the same song in each period. I am more favorably impressed by her later work, partially because the technical quality of the recordings is better later but also partially because her voice is better later. But you decide. Check these out from Sippy Wallace- "Advise Blues", "Special Delivery Blues", "I’m A Mighty Tight Woman", "Lazy Man Blues", and "Bedroom Blues". Check these from "Women Be Wise"-"Women Be Wise", "Special Delivery Blues", "Caldonia Blues" (definitely), and "Up Country Blues".
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