Hello,
Today's Artist an American singer who performed in various genres, including blues, R&B, soul, rock and roll, jazz and gospel. Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as "The Wallflower", "At Last", "Tell Mama", "Something's Got a Hold on Me", and "I'd Rather Go Blind". She faced a number of personal problems, including heroin addiction, severe physical abuse, and incarceration, before making a musical comeback in the late 1980s with the album Seven Year Itch. Her powerful, deep, earthy voice bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll. She won six Grammy Awards and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Rolling Stone magazine ranked James number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time; she was also ranked number 62 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.. ... N Joy
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Few female R&B stars enjoyed the kind of consistent acclaim Etta James received throughout a career that spanned six decades; the celebrated producer Jerry Wexler once called her "the greatest of all modern blues singers," and she recorded a number of enduring hits, including "At Last," "Tell Mama," "I'd Rather Go Blind," and "All I Could Do Was Cry." At the same time, despite possessing one of the most powerful voices in music, James only belatedly gained the attention of the mainstream audience, appearing rarely on the pop charts despite scoring 30 R&B hits, and she lived a rough-and-tumble life that could have inspired a dozen soap operas, battling drug addiction and bad relationships while outrunning a variety of health and legal problems.
Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles, California on January 25, 1938; her mother was just 14 years old at the time, and she never knew her father, though she would later say she had reason to believe he was the well-known pool hustler Minnesota Fats. James was raised by friends and relatives instead of her mother through most of her childhood, and it was while she was living with her grandparents that she began regularly attending a Baptist church. James' voice made her a natural for the choir, and despite her young age she became a soloist with the group, and appeared with them on local radio broadcasts. At the age of 12, after the death of her foster mother, James found herself living with her mother in San Francisco, and with little adult supervision, she began to slide into juvenile delinquency. But James' love of music was also growing stronger, and with a pair of friends she formed a singing group called the Creolettes. The girls attracted the attention of famed bandleader Johnny Otis, and when he heard their song "Roll with Me Henry" -- a racy answer song to Hank Ballard's infamous "Work with Me Annie" -- he arranged for them to sign with Modern Records, and the Creolettes cut the tune under the name the Peaches (the new handle coming from Etta's longtime nickname). "Roll with Me Henry," renamed "The Wallflower," became a hit in 1955, though Georgia Gibbs would score a bigger success with her cover version, much to Etta's dismay. After charting with a second R&B hit, "Good Rockin' Daddy," the Peaches broke up and James stepped out on her own.
James' solo career was a slow starter, and she spent several years cutting low-selling singles for Modern and touring small clubs until 1960, when Leonard Chess signed her to a new record deal. James would record for Chess Records and its subsidiary labels Argo and Checker into the late '70s and, working with producers Ralph Bass and Harvey Fuqua, she embraced a style that fused the passion of R&B with the polish of jazz, and scored a number of hits for the label, including "All I Could Do Was Cry," "My Dearest Darling," and "Trust in Me." While James was enjoying a career resurgence, her personal life was not faring as well; she began experimenting with drugs as a teenager, and by the time she was 21 she was a heroin addict, and as the '60s wore on she found it increasingly difficult to balance her habit with her career, especially as she clashed with her producers at Chess, fought to be paid her royalties, and dealt with a number of abusive romantic relationships. James' career went into a slump in the mid-'60s, but in 1967 she began recording with producer Rick Hall at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and, adopting a tougher, grittier style, she bounced back onto the R&B charts with the tunes "Tell Mama" and "I'd Rather Go Blind."
In the early '70s, James had fallen off the charts again, her addiction was raging, and she turned to petty crime to support her habit. She entered rehab on a court order in 1973, the same year she recorded a rock-oriented album, Only a Fool, with producer Gabriel Mekler. Through most of the '70s, a sober James got by touring small clubs and playing occasional blues festivals, and she recorded for Chess with limited success, despite the high quality of her work. In 1978, longtime fans the Rolling Stones paid homage to James by inviting her to open some shows for them on tour, and she signed with Warner Bros., cutting the album Deep in the Night with producer Jerry Wexler. While the album didn't sell well, it received enthusiastic reviews and reminded serious blues and R&B fans that James was still a force to be reckoned with. By her own account, James fell back into drug addiction after becoming involved with a man with a habit, and she went back to playing club dates when and where she could until she kicked again thanks to a stay at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. That same year, James signed with Island Records and cut a powerful comeback album, Seven Year Itch, produced by Barry Beckett of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. The album sold respectably and James was determined to keep her career on track, playing frequent live shows and recording regularly, issuing Stickin' to My Guns in 1990 and The Right Time in 1992.
In 1994, a year after she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, James signed to the Private Music label, and recorded Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday, a tribute to the great vocalist she had long cited as a key influence; the album earned Etta her first Grammy Award. The relationship with Private Music proved simpatico, and between 1995 and 2003 James cut eight albums for the label, while also maintaining a busy touring schedule. In 2003, James published an autobiography, Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story, and in 2008 she was played onscreen by modern R&B diva Beyoncé Knowles in Cadillac Records, a film loosely based on the history of Chess Records. Knowles recorded a faithful cover of "At Last" for the film's soundtrack, and later performed the song at Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural ball; several days later, James made headlines when during a concert she said "I can't stand Beyoncé, she had no business up there singing my song that I've been singing forever." (Later the same week, James told The New York Times that the statement was meant to be a joke -- "I didn't really mean anything...even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude" -- but she was saddened that she hadn't been invited to perform the song.)
In 2010, James was hospitalized with MRSA-related infections, and it was revealed that she had received treatment for dependence on painkillers and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which her son claimed was the likely cause of her outbursts regarding Knowles. James released The Dreamer, for Verve Forecast in 2011. She claimed it was her final album of new material. Etta James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia later that year, and died on January 20, 2012 in Riverside, California at the age of 73.
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Ace does it again -- of course. These two discs, The Complete Modern and Kent Recordings, contain every side that the young powerhouse Etta James cut for Modern, Crown, and Kent between 1955 and 1961. There are 42 cuts on these two discs, remastered and sequenced painstakingly according to release date. There are no less than seven previously unissued cuts, and two more that have appeared only on Ace compilations. (There's a killer alternate take of "Hey Henry" here that rivals the released version). Fans will have a lot of this material in various places, but this collection puts everything together in one slamming package. The first disc is comprised exclusively of sides recorded for Modern between '55 and '57. Among the masterpieces of killer, bed-rocking R&B found here are "W-O-M-A-N," "Hey Henry," "Good Rockin' Day," "The Pick-Up," "Tough Lover," and "Be Mine." Disc two, where the treasures really are, lays out the Kent and Crown material, and contains all the rarities. There are a few duets here where James is joined by Betty & Dupree as on "If It Ain't One Thing," and "We're In Love." The rehearsal of "Be My Lovely Dovey," is raw and wonderful, as is the alternate version of "Crazy Feelin," without backing from a group. The liner essay by Tony Rounce is both authoritative and accessible, and gives a solid and revealing portrait of James' place in the pantheon and how her star rose. This is, in its way, an historic set because this is the first time all these sides have appeared in one place. Highly recommended.
Etta James - The Complete Modern and Kent Recordings 1 (flac 155mb)
01 The Wallflower 3:07
02 Hold Me, Squeeze Me 2:32
03 Hey Henry 2:54
04 Be Mine 2:51
05 Good Rockin' Daddy 2:28
06 Crazy Feeling 3:19
07 W-O-M-A-N 2:47
08 That's All 2:16
09 My One and Only 2:31
10 I'm a Fool 2:32
11 Shortnin' Bread Rock 2:32
12 Tears of Joy 2:29
13 Tough Lover 2:11
14 Fools We Mortals Be 2:23
15 Good Lookin' 2:11
16 Then I'll Care 2:34
7 The Pick-Up 2:22
18 Market Place 2:57
19 Come What May 2:07
20 By the Light of the Silvery Moon 2:13
(ogg 92mb)
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Etta James - The Complete Modern and Kent Recordings 2 (flac 177mb)
01 Baby Baby Every Night 2:25
02 Sunshine of Love 2:27
03 How Big a Fool 2:41
04 If It Ain't One Thing 2:18
05 I Hope You're Satisfied 3:05
06 Dance with Me, Henry 2:24
07 Don't You Remember 3:03
08 Hickory Dickory Dock 3:03
09 Nobody Loves You Like Me 2:27
10 We're in Love 1:48
11 You Know What I Mean 3:06
12 Strange Things Happening 2:32
13 Be My Lovey Dovey 2:03
14 Tough Lover 2:30
15 Good Lookin' 2:09
16 Hey Henry 2:59
17 Crazy Feeling 3:20
18 Market Place 2:53
19 Hey Henry 2:20
20 Good Rockin' Daddy 2:32
21 How Big a Fool 2:49
22 That's All 2:13
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After spending a few years in limbo after scoring her first R&B hits "Dance With Me, Henry" and "Good Rocking Daddy," Etta James returned to the spotlight in 1961 with her first Chess release, At Last. James made both the R&B and pop charts with the album's title cut, "All I Could Do Was Cry," and "Trust in Me." What makes At Last a great album is not only the solid hits it contains, but also the strong variety of material throughout. James expertly handles jazz standards like "Stormy Weather" and "A Sunday Kind of Love," as well as Willie Dixon's blues classic "I Just Want to Make Love to You." James demonstrates her keen facility on the title track in particular, as she easily moves from powerful blues shouting to more subtle, airy phrasing; her Ruth Brown-inspired, bad-girl growl only adds to the intensity. James would go on to even greater success with later hits like "Tell Mama," but on At Last one hears the singer at her peak in a swinging and varied program of blues, R&B, and jazz standards.
Etta James - At Last (flac 198mb)
01 Anything To Say You're Mine 2:37
02 My Dearest Darling 3:05
03 Trust In Me 3:01
04 A Sunday Kind Of Love 3:19
05 Tough Mary 2:28
06 I Just Want To Make Love To You 3:09
07 At Last 3:02
08 All I Could Do Is Cry 2:58
09 Stormy Weather 3:11
10 Girl Of My Dreams (Rendered As "Boy Of My Dreams") 2:25
11 My Heart Cries 2:37
12 Spoonful 2:51
13 It's A Crying Shame 2:55
14 If I Can't Have You 2:50
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In part because it didn't have any of her biggest hits, the 1964 album Queen of Soul is a relatively overlooked one in Etta James' discography, even for an artist whose LPs weren't all that well known. The ten songs are dependable early soul music, though the material isn't quite on the level of her best mid-'60s work. "I Wish Someone Would Care" is about the best tune, but James was beaten to the punch on that score by Irma Thomas, who not only recorded the original and superior version, but also wrote the song. The one track to bear a James writing credit ("Bobby Is His Name," co-penned with Ed Townsend) is a pretty lightweight, almost teen pop-influenced number; "That Man Belongs Back Here with Me," co-composed by noted tunesmith Clint Ballard, is fair but not great pop-soul with a jazzy touch; "Flight 101" has a tinge of melodrama, though James' typically strong vocal saves it. "Loving You More Every Day" has a satisfying blues-gospel feel, but much of this has dated orchestration, even the closing "Mellow Fellow," which has one of her trademark, throaty, drawn-out testifying openings. Perhaps some of the album's overall unevenness can be attributed to it having been taken from sessions done over a period of two years.
Etta James - Queen Of Soul (flac 389mb)
01 Bobby Is His Name 3:29
02 I Wish Someone Would Care 2:35
03 That Man Belongs Back Here With Me 2:26
04 Somewhere Out 2:43
05 Breaking Point 2:24
06 Flight 101 3:26
07 Loving You More Every Day 3:19
08 Do Right 1:57
09 I Worry About You 3:13
10 Mellow Fellow 2:59
Bonus
11 You Got Me Where You Want Me 2:51
12 Only Time Will Tell 3:21
13 Pushover 2:54
14 You Can't Talk To A Fool 3:11
15 Would It Make Any Difference To You 2:37
16 Stop The Wedding 2:50
17 How Do You Speak To An Angel 2:36
18 Be Honest With Me 3:04
19 Pay Back 2:38
20 Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be) 3:52
21 Two Sides (To Every Story) 3:00
22 Tomorrow Night 3:17
23 I Can't Hold It In Anymore 2:38
Etta James - Queen Of Soul (ogg 152mb)
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Call My Name made for a reasonably strong 1967 soul LP by the standards of most soul singers. It just wasn't one of the standouts in the career of Etta James, given the very high standards she set with her best work. It's certainly OK, but it's tilted toward her more aggressive side, with brassy arrangements and without some of the smoldering ballads that were also highlights of her work. As it also features just one R&B hit, "I Prefer You," it might be something more for serious fans than for general soul or James admirers. Co-producer Monk Higgins has a big hand in the songwriting, co-writing the majority of the tunes, including a couple of the bluesier highlights, "Nobody Loves Me" and "It Must Be Your Love." A couple of covers of familiar classics, "You Are My Sunshine" and Curtis Mayfield's "It's All Right," seem a bit like filler. It's certainly a mixed bag of tunes.
Etta James - Call My Name (flac 377mb)
01 Happiness 2:48
02 That's All I Want From You 2:45
03 Have Faith In Me 2:40
04 I'm So Glad (I Found Love In You) 3:12
05 You Are My Sunshine 2:37
06 It Must Be Your Love 2:52
07 842-3089 (Call My Name) 2:57
08 Don't Pick Me For Your Fool 2:31
09 I Prefer You 2:50
10 Nobody Loves Me 2:45
11 It's All Right 2:37
12 Nobody Like You 2:53
Bonus
13 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man 2:57
14 I Got You Babe 2:25
15 You Took It 2:35
16 I Worship The Ground You Walk On 2:24
17 I've Gone Too Far 2:19
18 You Got It 2:24
19 Misty 3:12
20 Almost Persuaded 3:20
21 Slow And Easy 3:17
22 The Soul Of A Man 3:13
23 Light My Fire 2:50
24 Miss Pitiful 2:21
Etta James - Call My Name (ogg 152 mb)
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Today's Artist an American singer who performed in various genres, including blues, R&B, soul, rock and roll, jazz and gospel. Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as "The Wallflower", "At Last", "Tell Mama", "Something's Got a Hold on Me", and "I'd Rather Go Blind". She faced a number of personal problems, including heroin addiction, severe physical abuse, and incarceration, before making a musical comeback in the late 1980s with the album Seven Year Itch. Her powerful, deep, earthy voice bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll. She won six Grammy Awards and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Rolling Stone magazine ranked James number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time; she was also ranked number 62 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.. ... N Joy
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Few female R&B stars enjoyed the kind of consistent acclaim Etta James received throughout a career that spanned six decades; the celebrated producer Jerry Wexler once called her "the greatest of all modern blues singers," and she recorded a number of enduring hits, including "At Last," "Tell Mama," "I'd Rather Go Blind," and "All I Could Do Was Cry." At the same time, despite possessing one of the most powerful voices in music, James only belatedly gained the attention of the mainstream audience, appearing rarely on the pop charts despite scoring 30 R&B hits, and she lived a rough-and-tumble life that could have inspired a dozen soap operas, battling drug addiction and bad relationships while outrunning a variety of health and legal problems.
Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles, California on January 25, 1938; her mother was just 14 years old at the time, and she never knew her father, though she would later say she had reason to believe he was the well-known pool hustler Minnesota Fats. James was raised by friends and relatives instead of her mother through most of her childhood, and it was while she was living with her grandparents that she began regularly attending a Baptist church. James' voice made her a natural for the choir, and despite her young age she became a soloist with the group, and appeared with them on local radio broadcasts. At the age of 12, after the death of her foster mother, James found herself living with her mother in San Francisco, and with little adult supervision, she began to slide into juvenile delinquency. But James' love of music was also growing stronger, and with a pair of friends she formed a singing group called the Creolettes. The girls attracted the attention of famed bandleader Johnny Otis, and when he heard their song "Roll with Me Henry" -- a racy answer song to Hank Ballard's infamous "Work with Me Annie" -- he arranged for them to sign with Modern Records, and the Creolettes cut the tune under the name the Peaches (the new handle coming from Etta's longtime nickname). "Roll with Me Henry," renamed "The Wallflower," became a hit in 1955, though Georgia Gibbs would score a bigger success with her cover version, much to Etta's dismay. After charting with a second R&B hit, "Good Rockin' Daddy," the Peaches broke up and James stepped out on her own.
James' solo career was a slow starter, and she spent several years cutting low-selling singles for Modern and touring small clubs until 1960, when Leonard Chess signed her to a new record deal. James would record for Chess Records and its subsidiary labels Argo and Checker into the late '70s and, working with producers Ralph Bass and Harvey Fuqua, she embraced a style that fused the passion of R&B with the polish of jazz, and scored a number of hits for the label, including "All I Could Do Was Cry," "My Dearest Darling," and "Trust in Me." While James was enjoying a career resurgence, her personal life was not faring as well; she began experimenting with drugs as a teenager, and by the time she was 21 she was a heroin addict, and as the '60s wore on she found it increasingly difficult to balance her habit with her career, especially as she clashed with her producers at Chess, fought to be paid her royalties, and dealt with a number of abusive romantic relationships. James' career went into a slump in the mid-'60s, but in 1967 she began recording with producer Rick Hall at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and, adopting a tougher, grittier style, she bounced back onto the R&B charts with the tunes "Tell Mama" and "I'd Rather Go Blind."
In the early '70s, James had fallen off the charts again, her addiction was raging, and she turned to petty crime to support her habit. She entered rehab on a court order in 1973, the same year she recorded a rock-oriented album, Only a Fool, with producer Gabriel Mekler. Through most of the '70s, a sober James got by touring small clubs and playing occasional blues festivals, and she recorded for Chess with limited success, despite the high quality of her work. In 1978, longtime fans the Rolling Stones paid homage to James by inviting her to open some shows for them on tour, and she signed with Warner Bros., cutting the album Deep in the Night with producer Jerry Wexler. While the album didn't sell well, it received enthusiastic reviews and reminded serious blues and R&B fans that James was still a force to be reckoned with. By her own account, James fell back into drug addiction after becoming involved with a man with a habit, and she went back to playing club dates when and where she could until she kicked again thanks to a stay at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. That same year, James signed with Island Records and cut a powerful comeback album, Seven Year Itch, produced by Barry Beckett of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. The album sold respectably and James was determined to keep her career on track, playing frequent live shows and recording regularly, issuing Stickin' to My Guns in 1990 and The Right Time in 1992.
In 1994, a year after she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, James signed to the Private Music label, and recorded Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday, a tribute to the great vocalist she had long cited as a key influence; the album earned Etta her first Grammy Award. The relationship with Private Music proved simpatico, and between 1995 and 2003 James cut eight albums for the label, while also maintaining a busy touring schedule. In 2003, James published an autobiography, Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story, and in 2008 she was played onscreen by modern R&B diva Beyoncé Knowles in Cadillac Records, a film loosely based on the history of Chess Records. Knowles recorded a faithful cover of "At Last" for the film's soundtrack, and later performed the song at Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural ball; several days later, James made headlines when during a concert she said "I can't stand Beyoncé, she had no business up there singing my song that I've been singing forever." (Later the same week, James told The New York Times that the statement was meant to be a joke -- "I didn't really mean anything...even as a little child, I've always had that comedian kind of attitude" -- but she was saddened that she hadn't been invited to perform the song.)
In 2010, James was hospitalized with MRSA-related infections, and it was revealed that she had received treatment for dependence on painkillers and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which her son claimed was the likely cause of her outbursts regarding Knowles. James released The Dreamer, for Verve Forecast in 2011. She claimed it was her final album of new material. Etta James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia later that year, and died on January 20, 2012 in Riverside, California at the age of 73.
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Ace does it again -- of course. These two discs, The Complete Modern and Kent Recordings, contain every side that the young powerhouse Etta James cut for Modern, Crown, and Kent between 1955 and 1961. There are 42 cuts on these two discs, remastered and sequenced painstakingly according to release date. There are no less than seven previously unissued cuts, and two more that have appeared only on Ace compilations. (There's a killer alternate take of "Hey Henry" here that rivals the released version). Fans will have a lot of this material in various places, but this collection puts everything together in one slamming package. The first disc is comprised exclusively of sides recorded for Modern between '55 and '57. Among the masterpieces of killer, bed-rocking R&B found here are "W-O-M-A-N," "Hey Henry," "Good Rockin' Day," "The Pick-Up," "Tough Lover," and "Be Mine." Disc two, where the treasures really are, lays out the Kent and Crown material, and contains all the rarities. There are a few duets here where James is joined by Betty & Dupree as on "If It Ain't One Thing," and "We're In Love." The rehearsal of "Be My Lovely Dovey," is raw and wonderful, as is the alternate version of "Crazy Feelin," without backing from a group. The liner essay by Tony Rounce is both authoritative and accessible, and gives a solid and revealing portrait of James' place in the pantheon and how her star rose. This is, in its way, an historic set because this is the first time all these sides have appeared in one place. Highly recommended.
Etta James - The Complete Modern and Kent Recordings 1 (flac 155mb)
01 The Wallflower 3:07
02 Hold Me, Squeeze Me 2:32
03 Hey Henry 2:54
04 Be Mine 2:51
05 Good Rockin' Daddy 2:28
06 Crazy Feeling 3:19
07 W-O-M-A-N 2:47
08 That's All 2:16
09 My One and Only 2:31
10 I'm a Fool 2:32
11 Shortnin' Bread Rock 2:32
12 Tears of Joy 2:29
13 Tough Lover 2:11
14 Fools We Mortals Be 2:23
15 Good Lookin' 2:11
16 Then I'll Care 2:34
7 The Pick-Up 2:22
18 Market Place 2:57
19 Come What May 2:07
20 By the Light of the Silvery Moon 2:13
(ogg 92mb)
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Etta James - The Complete Modern and Kent Recordings 2 (flac 177mb)
01 Baby Baby Every Night 2:25
02 Sunshine of Love 2:27
03 How Big a Fool 2:41
04 If It Ain't One Thing 2:18
05 I Hope You're Satisfied 3:05
06 Dance with Me, Henry 2:24
07 Don't You Remember 3:03
08 Hickory Dickory Dock 3:03
09 Nobody Loves You Like Me 2:27
10 We're in Love 1:48
11 You Know What I Mean 3:06
12 Strange Things Happening 2:32
13 Be My Lovey Dovey 2:03
14 Tough Lover 2:30
15 Good Lookin' 2:09
16 Hey Henry 2:59
17 Crazy Feeling 3:20
18 Market Place 2:53
19 Hey Henry 2:20
20 Good Rockin' Daddy 2:32
21 How Big a Fool 2:49
22 That's All 2:13
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After spending a few years in limbo after scoring her first R&B hits "Dance With Me, Henry" and "Good Rocking Daddy," Etta James returned to the spotlight in 1961 with her first Chess release, At Last. James made both the R&B and pop charts with the album's title cut, "All I Could Do Was Cry," and "Trust in Me." What makes At Last a great album is not only the solid hits it contains, but also the strong variety of material throughout. James expertly handles jazz standards like "Stormy Weather" and "A Sunday Kind of Love," as well as Willie Dixon's blues classic "I Just Want to Make Love to You." James demonstrates her keen facility on the title track in particular, as she easily moves from powerful blues shouting to more subtle, airy phrasing; her Ruth Brown-inspired, bad-girl growl only adds to the intensity. James would go on to even greater success with later hits like "Tell Mama," but on At Last one hears the singer at her peak in a swinging and varied program of blues, R&B, and jazz standards.
Etta James - At Last (flac 198mb)
01 Anything To Say You're Mine 2:37
02 My Dearest Darling 3:05
03 Trust In Me 3:01
04 A Sunday Kind Of Love 3:19
05 Tough Mary 2:28
06 I Just Want To Make Love To You 3:09
07 At Last 3:02
08 All I Could Do Is Cry 2:58
09 Stormy Weather 3:11
10 Girl Of My Dreams (Rendered As "Boy Of My Dreams") 2:25
11 My Heart Cries 2:37
12 Spoonful 2:51
13 It's A Crying Shame 2:55
14 If I Can't Have You 2:50
(ogg mb)
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In part because it didn't have any of her biggest hits, the 1964 album Queen of Soul is a relatively overlooked one in Etta James' discography, even for an artist whose LPs weren't all that well known. The ten songs are dependable early soul music, though the material isn't quite on the level of her best mid-'60s work. "I Wish Someone Would Care" is about the best tune, but James was beaten to the punch on that score by Irma Thomas, who not only recorded the original and superior version, but also wrote the song. The one track to bear a James writing credit ("Bobby Is His Name," co-penned with Ed Townsend) is a pretty lightweight, almost teen pop-influenced number; "That Man Belongs Back Here with Me," co-composed by noted tunesmith Clint Ballard, is fair but not great pop-soul with a jazzy touch; "Flight 101" has a tinge of melodrama, though James' typically strong vocal saves it. "Loving You More Every Day" has a satisfying blues-gospel feel, but much of this has dated orchestration, even the closing "Mellow Fellow," which has one of her trademark, throaty, drawn-out testifying openings. Perhaps some of the album's overall unevenness can be attributed to it having been taken from sessions done over a period of two years.
Etta James - Queen Of Soul (flac 389mb)
01 Bobby Is His Name 3:29
02 I Wish Someone Would Care 2:35
03 That Man Belongs Back Here With Me 2:26
04 Somewhere Out 2:43
05 Breaking Point 2:24
06 Flight 101 3:26
07 Loving You More Every Day 3:19
08 Do Right 1:57
09 I Worry About You 3:13
10 Mellow Fellow 2:59
Bonus
11 You Got Me Where You Want Me 2:51
12 Only Time Will Tell 3:21
13 Pushover 2:54
14 You Can't Talk To A Fool 3:11
15 Would It Make Any Difference To You 2:37
16 Stop The Wedding 2:50
17 How Do You Speak To An Angel 2:36
18 Be Honest With Me 3:04
19 Pay Back 2:38
20 Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be) 3:52
21 Two Sides (To Every Story) 3:00
22 Tomorrow Night 3:17
23 I Can't Hold It In Anymore 2:38
Etta James - Queen Of Soul (ogg 152mb)
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Call My Name made for a reasonably strong 1967 soul LP by the standards of most soul singers. It just wasn't one of the standouts in the career of Etta James, given the very high standards she set with her best work. It's certainly OK, but it's tilted toward her more aggressive side, with brassy arrangements and without some of the smoldering ballads that were also highlights of her work. As it also features just one R&B hit, "I Prefer You," it might be something more for serious fans than for general soul or James admirers. Co-producer Monk Higgins has a big hand in the songwriting, co-writing the majority of the tunes, including a couple of the bluesier highlights, "Nobody Loves Me" and "It Must Be Your Love." A couple of covers of familiar classics, "You Are My Sunshine" and Curtis Mayfield's "It's All Right," seem a bit like filler. It's certainly a mixed bag of tunes.
Etta James - Call My Name (flac 377mb)
01 Happiness 2:48
02 That's All I Want From You 2:45
03 Have Faith In Me 2:40
04 I'm So Glad (I Found Love In You) 3:12
05 You Are My Sunshine 2:37
06 It Must Be Your Love 2:52
07 842-3089 (Call My Name) 2:57
08 Don't Pick Me For Your Fool 2:31
09 I Prefer You 2:50
10 Nobody Loves Me 2:45
11 It's All Right 2:37
12 Nobody Like You 2:53
Bonus
13 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man 2:57
14 I Got You Babe 2:25
15 You Took It 2:35
16 I Worship The Ground You Walk On 2:24
17 I've Gone Too Far 2:19
18 You Got It 2:24
19 Misty 3:12
20 Almost Persuaded 3:20
21 Slow And Easy 3:17
22 The Soul Of A Man 3:13
23 Light My Fire 2:50
24 Miss Pitiful 2:21
Etta James - Call My Name (ogg 152 mb)
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