Etta James used to tell a story about meeting Billie Holiday in which Holiday told her — fatherless wild child to fatherless wild child — not to let the bad men and drugs that were going to come her way destroy her. Something about that brief conversation must’ve stuck, because despite many misadventures with drugs and men over the years, James was sober by the time I met her in the early ’90s and carefully planning the comeback which won her new contracts, tours, awards, and laurels. James lived to see her role as a musical pioneer boldly re-inscribed in America’s public memory, then capped her legacy with a magnificent final album mere months before her death in Riverside, Calif., on January 20, just five days short of her 74th birthday. Continue reading “Etta James, R.I.P.”
Tag: Etta James
Rise of the Anachronauts
On Dan Hicks, Leonard Cohen, Etta James, and other fearless time travelers
I call them anachronauts: performers whose core appeal stems from their ability to transport listeners to another time and place. Whereas ordinary pop stars strive to intensify awareness of the present moment so that nothing else matters, anachronauts use archaic language, modes, and instrumentation to expand our egocentric understanding of the present with illuminating reminders of forgotten history. Continue reading “Rise of the Anachronauts”