Ruth Brown
BIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY
The first undisputed Queen Of Rock ‘n’ Roll, an immensely versatile singer who dreamed of singing classy pop ballads only to find herself caught up in the rock maelstrom where she became the biggest female star of her era and so defined its primary style that she was dubbed Miss Rhythm.
Ruth Weston was born in 1928 in Virginia and was a featured vocalist in her church by the time she was six and at ten years old was making the rounds of nearby parishes to perform. In her mid-teens she began singing at a USO Club for soldiers and on a trip to New York she won first prize at The Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night competition, wowing the audience so much that they had her sing her song a second time.
At 16 she left home and became a professional singer, soon partnering with an ex-solder and trumpet player named Jimmy Brown whom she then married. She took his name, and kept it after they broke up a short time later, and was hired by famed bandleader Lucky Millinder where she was little more than an understudy for their primary female lead, Annisteen Allen. When Brown finally got to sing in Washington D.C. and went over well she was immediately fired by Millinder after he saw her bringing sodas to the band members, telling her he hired a singer, not a waitress, leaving her stranded in the nation’s capital.
Taken in by Blanche Calloway, sister of the legendary singer Cab Calloway, who ran a local nightspot called the Crystal Caverns, Blanche hired Ruth to sing for thirty dollars a week to earn enough to pay her way home. In short order Brown caught the attention of disc jockey Willis Conover who tipped off Atlantic Records, still just a minor label struggling to pay the bills, and they signed her to a contract in the fall of 1948. While driving to New York to make her first professional appearance at The Apollo and to cut her first records she was in a near fatal car crash, breaking both legs, injured so badly she was initially pronounced dead on the scene. After being hospitalized for months she went to her first recording session in April 1949 on crutches and a month later recorded what would be her debut release “So Long”. Released that summer it was a Top Five hit.
Brown’s style had been in a pop vein and her next few records swung between pop standards and tentative rock numbers, but when Rudolph Toombs wrote “Teardrops From My Eyes” for her in the waning months of 1950 the dye was cast, as she sang the heavily rhythmic song with a catch in her voice that became her trademark. It became the biggest rock hit by a female artist (11 weeks at #1 on the R&B Charts) in the 20th Century.
For the next decade there were few artists, male or female, who could match her success as Brown scored four more #1 hits among her twenty-one Top Ten smashes. She became the first female headliner in rock, often appearing with her steady boyfriend, tenor sax great Willis “Gator” Jackson, although it was a brief fling with fellow Atlantic star Clyde McPhatter that led to the birth of a son in mid-decade.
Her success during this time propelled Atlantic Records from fringe player in the music industry to the most successful independent label of the 1950’s, leading to Atlantic being dubbed “The House That Ruth Built”, a play on the same term that had been used to describe Yankee Stadium which was constructed during Babe Ruth’s reign as America’s greatest sports figure.
Despite this unrivaled success Atlantic cut Brown loose in the early 1960’s as they were wrestling with the musical changes going on around them at the time and viewed her as past her prime, something which seemed to be proven true when she failed to revive her stagnating career at several stops, even with some quality records to show for it. By the end of the 1960‘s the once indomitable star was reduced to driving a school bus and working as a domestic to make ends meet, barely able to afford rent and she often went without electric or heat.
Her life and career began to turn around in an unlikely way in the mid-1970’s when old friend, comedian Redd Foxx, the star of the monster television hit Sanford & Son hired her to appear on his show. More than twenty years earlier, struggling mightily, Foxx went to Brown with hat in hand asking for help. She was on top of the world at the time and told her friend to help himself to whatever he needed from the three thousand dollars she’d just been paid for a show. He took $450, enough to get back on his feet, and now was repaying her with interest.
As a result of this exposure she got several acting jobs including a co-starring role on a short-lived weekly series and began doing live shows again, gradually re-building her brand and appearing everywhere from Las Vegas to Europe. Brown then switched to theater, appearing in a number of well-received shows and eventually starring on Broadway in Black And Blue for which she won a Tony Award. She topped things off with a scene stealing performance in the John Waters cult movie Hairspray as the eccentric blonde-wig wearing rhyming record store owner, Motormouth Maybelle.
Her greatest achievement during this period however came when she successfully challenged Atlantic Records for past royalties which not only hadn’t been paid in a quarter century but the company said during that time her total sales for countless reissues amounted to all of $785 and that she still owed them money from the expenses of recording those songs in the fifties. Caught in a lie too big to evade with their disgraceful plantation practices exposed in the media and under threat of indictment under the RICO act which would embroil them as racketeers, the last of the “original” independent labels that had dominated rock ‘n’ roll on the back of singers like Ruth Brown were forced to pay in very public fashion. The deal she and her representatives brokered resulted in the establishment of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation which was set up to alleviate the financial burdens of other artists ripped off by these companies for decades.
Brown’s career revival was in full force by this point as she won her first Grammy in 1990, nabbed another award for her autobiography Miss Rhythm, and was inducted into The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993, giving her one of the more remarkable third acts in rock history. When she passed away in 2006 at the age of 78 she had just recorded a song for a movie soundtrack and was still touring regularly, as her decade as rock’s greatest female star was now only a portion of her immense legacy.
RUTH BROWN DISCOGRAPHY (Records Reviewed To Date On Spontaneous Lunacy):
SO LONG
(Atlantic 879; July, 1949)
A startlingly mature debut that is sung with power and pathos by Brown and while the Eddie Condon backing is a bit too high class for rock’s usual seedy aims you barely notice them when confronted by such a skilled vocal talent. (7)
I’LL GET ALONG SOMEHOW (PART 1 & 2)
(Atlantic 887; October, 1949)
A poor decision to cover a new hit that boasted such a unique arrangement making any other version derivative and while Ruth sings the first half quite well her spoken recitation on the second half is an absolute mess. (2)
ROCKING BLUES
(Atlantic 887; October, 1949)
A solid performance on a torch song that lets Brown mine her own pain but she’s hampered by the conflicting lyrical viewpoints in their attempts to connect this more blatantly with rock fans by using that term rather inappropriately. (5)
LOVE ME BABY
(Atlantic 893; January, 1950)
Though Brown does all she can with this vocally she can’t overcome the terrible arrangement that fails to realize that a song about eagerly anticipating hooking up with someone shouldn’t sound so depressing and utterly boring. (2)
(I’LL COME BACK) SOMEDAY
(Atlantic 899; February, 1950)
An expertly sung ballad wherein Brown wrings out every drop of emotion and shows off her technical prowess with some understated help from The Delta Rhythm Boys on harmonies, but stylistically this wasn’t what was going to set her apart and make her a star. (6)
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
(Atlantic 905; April, 1950)
As a pure performance this rates a lot higher than it does as a rock record where its stylistic limitations keep it from ever being fully acceptable in the genre, even though Brown, the band and The Delta Rhythm Boys backing her all handle their jobs with class. (4)
TEARDROPS FROM MY EYES
(Atlantic 919; September, 1950)
The stylistic breakthrough for Brown who delivers a rousing performance in which her unbridled emotion wrestles with the somber lyrics and creates something magical out of the contrast, supported by a band who has her back at every turn. ★ 10 ★
I’LL WAIT FOR YOU
(Atlantic 930; February, 1951)
A well calculated follow-up to her breakthrough hit finds Brown tweaking the formula enough to keep it fresh and if the song itself isn’t flawless her vocals are so good that you overlook the lurching melody and jazzier transitions just to hear her soar by the end. (8)
STANDING ON THE CORNER
(Atlantic 930; February, 1951)
Brown’s mighty vocals can’t save this from her own questionable lyrics as a songwriter and the backing band’s total lack of understanding that this is supposed to be an emotional rock performance rather than a dainty waltz around the dancefloor. (3)
I KNOW
(Atlantic 941; June, 1951)
Though the components are largely recycled from her last two smashes, they offer enough changes here by slowing things down and drawing out the suspense, to keep it interesting even if the specifics of the plot get a little muddied as it goes on. (7)
SHINE ON (BIG BRIGHT MOON, SHINE ON)
(Atlantic 948; October, 1951)
An interesting attempt to broaden her appeal by taking a recent blues song and having her backed by a more loose-knit ensemble, but while she handles it okay and gets a good sax solo by Willis Jackson, it doesn’t quite highlight what she does so well. (6)
WITHOUT MY LOVE
(Atlantic 948; October, 1951)
An attempt at a classy jazzy-pop ballad has some nice touches, including a great guitar lick, and Brown handles her business as well as usual, but the song itself is flawed and even in the best of circumstances doesn’t fit seamlessly in a rock context. (4)
5-10-15 HOURS
(Atlantic 962; February, 1952)
Despite altering the title and thus the entire meaning of the song by changing it from “minutes” to “hours”, Brown, the band and the rest of Rudy Toombs composition is so good in painting a vivid picture of lust that the song still works great, just no longer perfectly. (8)
DADDY DADDY
(Atlantic 973; July 1952)
Though the quirky rhythmic pattern is great in of itself, it causes Brown to struggle to find her footing vocally and while she manages to pull it off on a well-written song of erotic longing and got a hit in the process, it’s a step below her usual brilliance. (7)
HAVE A GOOD TIME
(Atlantic 973; July 1952)
The first writing credit by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant for a song cut by a rock artist, though this is more of a pop song with a pop arrangement that is very well sung by Brown who injects just enough added emotion to give it a little rock credibility. (4)
THREE LETTERS
(Atlantic 978; September, 1952)
A complete waste of time as Brown revisits Part Two of her 1949 cover of “I’ll Get Along Somehow”, sounding technically better at times perhaps, but emotionally disconnected from the story while the entire arrangement is naturally long out of date. (2)