Now that she is dead, Etta James is being accorded the respect and acclaim she seldom enjoyed in life. These eulogies link her with other names: Johnny Otis (himself dead last week), who discovered her in the ’40’s; Leonard Chess, who recorded her in the ’60’s; Keith Richards, who helped revive her career in the ’70’s, and Beyonce, who played her in the film Cadillac Records (2008).
But James was her own woman, a fact no one who ever encountered her was likely to forget. She could sing anything from Cole Porter to the gutbucket blues, and she did so as she did everything in her life, on her own terms. You never confused her with anyone else, nor anyone else with her; and the music she made surpasses any eulogy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADDigK8LwyE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzibSiJv8hc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YApNirMC9gM
[The following is from a previous EPB post.] Yes, that’s the original version of Seven Day Fool, as issued on Argo in 1961. The Chess brothers had hopes for Etta as a mainstream (white station) star. Hence the strings, which are featured on her first two albums.I don’t think Leonard or Phil knew too much about string arrangement. I can only guess that that was handled by Keith Harris, otherwise unknown to me, who is credited with Leonard and Phil as one of the producers.
I haven’t a clue as to personnel. But it would have been a very tight squeeze to record them all together at 2120 South Michigan. Strings overdubbed? Sure, it’s possible, though unusual for Chess at that early date. Alternatively, they might have rented another and larger studio in town. The short and honest answer is that I don’t know.
An even better version (to me) of Seven Day Fool is on Etta’s third lp Etta James Rocks the House. A tight little r&b band (stringless!) recorded live in a club in Nashville late in ’63. The entire lp is one of the great blues/r&b recordings of all time. Perhaps if Leonard hadn’t been so stuck on Etta, it might never have been made. Wikipedia lists the personnel but these players are strangers to me. They are not Chess (blues) studio sidemen. But they can cook!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI6I_IV9-XM
