Roots of R&B: Johnny Otis & Etta James

message comes from NPR sponsor Capella University.

Interested in a quality online education?

Capella is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.

Learn more at capella.edu.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm Terry Gross.

Today we continue our archive series R ⁇ B, Rockabilly, and Early Rock and Roll.

Before Elvis Presley recorded Hound Dog, it was recorded by Big Mama Thornton.

The record's drummer and producer was Johnny Otis, whose interview we're featuring today.

You told me you was high cat,

but I can see through that.

Yes, you told me you was hotman,

but I can see through that.

And daddy, I know

you ain't no real cool cat.

You ain't nothing but a hound dog

with snoop around my door.

You just know how dog

with snoopy round my my door.

You can wire your tail.

Come on, Ovid, you know,

all blood of the boy.

Oh, listen to Oh How Dog

Otis was also an RB singer and musician, a band leader, nightclub owner, and talent scout.

He started out leading a big band that had the 1945 hit Harlem Nocturne.

Soon after, his band, like most of the big bands, broke up for financial reasons.

Otis organized a smaller unit that played a hybrid of swing and blues that became known as Rhythm and Blues.

Otis's Rhythm and Blues Caravan became the first RB touring roadshow.

Through his nightclub, talent shows, and roadshow, Otis discovered such singers as Esther Phillips, who first worked under the name Little Esther, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard, and Edda James, who we'll hear from later in the show.

Otis had several RB hits in the early 50s, and in 1958, his record Willie and the Hanjive made it to the top 10 of the rock and roll chart.

Although Otis is a pioneer of RB and played almost exclusively with black performers, he was a white Greek American who grew up in a black neighborhood where his father ran a grocery store.

During the British invasion of the 60s, his style of music became decreasingly unpopular.

Otis died in 2012 at the the age of 90.

When I spoke with him in 1989, he was back on the road and in the recording studio.

His sessions from the 1950s had just been reissued.

We began with his first hit, that 1945 instrumental recording of Harlem Nocturne.

There's a great story behind recording this record.

Would you tell it?

Well, this goes back to the mid-40s, and it was my first record date with my own band, as I recall.

And we did three things.

I went to the producer after we had completed the third one.

I said, well, Mr.

Rene, that's it.

Three songs in four hours, and we got plenty of time left.

He said, no, you've got that wrong.

It's four songs in three hours.

Now get out there and get another song together.

We were the house band at the Club Alabama on Central Avenue here in L.A.

at the time.

And I remember when we would play this particular song, the chorus girls and the showgirls would come out of the balcony, out of their dressing rooms and dance on the balcony.

And they would always ask us to play it.

And I thought it must have some charm.

The ladies like it that well.

So I said, let's play that.

And it was a stock arrangement that had been recorded once before by Ray Noble

and an Earl Hagen tune.

But I slowed it down and I was a drummer.

Then I

went boom, boom, boom on the tom-toms.

And we recorded it.

And the songs that we had done previously with Jimmy Russian, the great Con Basie singer, and some wonderful arrangements, they didn't do it.

But Harlem Nocturne became an instant hit.

And when Harlem Nocturne became an instant hit, then you started touring with Louis Jordan and with the Ink Spots.

And they were some of the biggest black acts of the time.

Can you describe a little bit what the atmosphere was like at the concertists?

concerts in which you shared the bill?

That same feeling you feel today before the curtain opens, that great anticipation.

They're going to see Bill Kenney in the ink spots.

They're going to see Louis Jordan.

And we were lucky enough to be the band.

Did the audiences assume that you were black?

Of course.

In those days, many of the places we played, had they suspected I was white, we would have been arrested.

Well, I remember when I interviewed Solomon Burke, he told a story about how when one of his records crossed over to the country charts, he started getting invitations to play certain places in the south with white crowds who would have never asked him to play if they knew he was black.

And he showed up to one of these places, and it was quite a scene.

Did anything similar ever happen to you?

No.

We're talking now,

I assume we're back in the 40s.

If we are, it was much different than the Solomon Burke days of the 50s or the 60s with Solomon Burke.

You see, your life was on the line in those days when our bus would cross the Mason-Dixon line and the driver would say, well, we just crossed the Mason-Dixon line.

A pall would fall over the entire show.

We'd all get quiet because we knew we were down there where we had problems.

And many times we came close to being hurt.

One time we stopped the bus to go to get some gas, and my little singer, Lil Esther, who was only 13, jumped off and went to the restroom.

And I looked up, and there's a guy with a gun in my belly.

And he's shaking and he's all excited because the little black girl went to the white woman's bathroom.

And I thought to myself, any death but this.

So she came out and we went on down the road.

But those things happen to us all the time.

That was the open version of white racism as against the very subtle, pervasive, and institutionalized version that we have today.

Let me play one of the rhythm and blues records from the period that you made, and this was with the singer Little Esther, who we now know as Esther Phillips.

And this was Double Crossing Blues.

Do you want to say anything about this?

You write this.

Well, I can give you a little anecdote about it.

I was leaving my little chicken ranch in Watts back in the 40s, and with me were a group of guys I had found at the Beryl House, where I had a nightclub there called the Berrel House.

And we were going to do their first record, and they became known as the Robins and later the Coasters.

But Little Esther was a neighborhood little girl who used to help me with the other children catch my chickens when people would pick out the chicken they wanted.

And then we would have refreshments later.

And she ran up.

She said, Johnny, let me go, let me go.

So I said, oh, get in.

So she got in.

We went to Hollywood to the studio.

And when we got there, we did the Four Sides by the Robins.

And we had a few minutes left.

So I told her, I asked the producer, Ralph Bass, I said, man, we got some time.

Let me get these kids together.

I got a song I think would make sense.

He said, well, hurry up.

You've only got a couple of minutes.

So I taught it to him, and we did it.

And it was called Double Crossing Blues.

And he said, I said, can I do it one more time?

Because she kind of giggled.

He said, no, that's it.

But anyhow, that became the number one song of 1950.

And

it brought Lil Esther to stardom, and it did an awful lot for us, too.

And you're playing vibes, yeah, and I'm playing vibes.

Okay, here we go.

Been

looking for you, daddy.

I just found you in time.

You hit my mother

and just wore that you

matter daddy.

Don't my kisses satisfy

if I don't thrill you, baby.

Goodness knows how

to fly.

Folks say that you've been cheating,

and how I see it's true.

Well, I can't quit you, baby, cause I'm so in love with you.

What's the matter, Daddy?

If you would only tell me why

your fire don't thrill you, baby,

goodness knows I

won't wanna try.

You stayed out last night.

Say you were playing cards.

Can't understand it, baby.

Wouldn't make your big fat hit so hard.

I'm gonna leave.

Johnny Otis is my guest.

And by the way, he has a new album of some of his reissued recordings from the 1950s.

It's called The Capital Years.

We'll be hearing some of that in just a little while.

You discovered a lot of talent, not just a little Esther, Esther Phillips.

What was your way of scouting for people?

Actually, my first singer was Ernestine Anderson when she was just a little girl.

Really?

Then, yeah, and then came Esther Phillips.

But after Esther Phillips' amazing success and became the big child star of the African-American community nationally, then everywhere we played, people

would bring me their sons and their daughters backstage.

I guess they figured I was an expert who knew how to make stars out of kids.

And

that's how it started.

One day in Detroit at the Paradise Theater, I asked the manager, I said, during this week that we'll be here, how about me doing a talent show to avoid having to have all these people coming around with their kids?

He said, great.

And we did.

It was to have been one hour, but it stretched into two hours.

And we found so many wonderful singers and players that day I found Little Willie John Jackie Wilson and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters on that particular show and there were probably others but the record company I was scouting for King only wanted to deal with three at the at the moment and I thought Years later when Barry Gordy formed his great Motown story, I said, no wonder, look at the reservoir of talent here in Detroit.

It must have been funny, though, when the parents were bringing you their children.

You must have been exposed to a lot of really untalented kids also.

Well I learned quick.

They would come and say and they almost all had exactly I don't care if I was in Mississippi or Massachusetts they would say now Mr.

Otis we know that you know and if if Junior has any real talent you'll tell us the truth and if he doesn't of course you'll but they didn't mean that I didn't know it what they meant was this is the world's answer to the great child star this is it and if I would dare to suggest they weren't, then I had an enemy on my hands.

So I learned how to sidestep that and tell little fibs.

We've been talking about rhythm and blues.

When there was the transition between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, did you have to,

did you find yourself changing the music or were maybe the audiences changing that you were playing your music too?

Yeah, that's true.

When I was dealing with the classic rhythm and blues that we developed back in the 40s, we did a lot of bluesy material because the black audience demanded it.

As the transition occurred, we then had to play more animated jump blues boogie styles and act, put on an act for white folks because they wanted it to be, where they wanted to see us, you know, work and sweat, and that's what they liked.

The early black audiences wanted a more musical, bluesy, jazz thing.

The white audiences wanted that jump tune, boogie-woogie kind of thing.

Well, I want to play a song that you had that was hit on the rock and roll charts in 1958.

And this is Willie and the Hand Jive.

Let's play it, and then we'll talk about it.

I know a cat named Way Hard Willie.

He got a cool little chick named Rockin' Billy.

He can walk and stroll and sue the cue

And do that crazy hand jive too

Papa told Willie, you'll run my home

You and that hand jive has got to go

Willie said Papa don't put me down

They're doing that hand jive all over town

Hand jive

hand jive

This hand drive, which was a big hit for my guest, Johnny Otis, back in 1958.

Tell me about writing the song.

My manager, the late Hal Zeiger and partner back at that time, we had a hit in 57 called Molly's Making Eyes at Me with the Great Marie Adams singing, and it became a hit, not here in the States, but but in Europe.

In England, it was number one.

So he went over to set up the tour, and when he got back, he said, listen, I saw something interesting.

I saw the young people around the London area in the venues where they couldn't dance, at the concerts and the theaters.

As they sat there,

they would do a thing that you guys in the big black bands used to do with their hands, you know, while the band was playing.

And they call it Handjive.

Why don't you write a song called Handjive and maybe we'll do some good over in Europe?

Well, I did, and luckily it became a hit everywhere.

So the hand drive was basically just kind of clapping and moving your hands.

Yeah, while you're sitting.

While you're sitting.

It became a whole dance later.

I want to play something that you're featured on from this new reissue called The Capital Years.

And this is Can't You Hear Me Calling?

Okay.

And you're singing on this?

Yeah.

And what are you playing on?

After a fashion.

Oh, you sound really good on it.

Oh, well.

Okay.

You and my mother think so.

Okay, well, let's give it a listen.

Can't you hear me calling, baby, baby?

Please don't go.

Baby, please don't go.

Baby, don't you know I love, I love,

I love you so.

I love you so.

But now you got me all alone, all alone and blue.

And I'm sitting here crying over you.

Can't you hear me calling, baby?

Baby, please don't go.

Can't you hear me calling?

I, I, I, I, I,

I can't go home.

I can't go home.

And now you know you got me crying,

crying.

I'm all alone.

I'm all alone.

Come on, baby, won't you tell me that you're coming home?

Don't leave me crying here all alone.

Can't you hear me calling, baby?

Baby, please don't go.

Don't go, don't go in the

Johnny Otis from the new album The Capital Years, you know, Ben Vaughan wrote the liner notes for this record and in it he mentions that

in one of your, I guess there was a publicity shot that your goatee was airbrushed out so that you would look less ethnic.

What was the story behind that?

Oh, Hal Zager, the late Hal Zager, God rest his soul,

he was my partner at the time, and he did these things without even asking me.

And while he, you know, he wanted me me to look less black he wanted me to look less like a Greek he wanted me to look like a nice Anglo-Saxon wasp

which is hard to do but he tried so he airbrushed out the goatee yeah

I don't think that sold any records

knew your family is Greek was Greek yeah your parents yeah and yeah were and are

yes and your last name was Veliotis Veliotis and when did you change it to Otis

The kids at school kind of made that decision for me.

They decided not to deal with, try to remember how to pronounce that.

They would say Johnny Otis.

And

that's the way it stuck.

So

I know that your father had a grocery store.

Was that in the same neighborhood that you lived in?

Oh, yes.

The grocery store was downstairs and we lived upstairs.

And this was in a black neighborhood?

Yes, in the heart of the black neighborhood.

So that, I guess, helps explain why you grew up with such a story.

And that's also the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

Uh-huh.

So...

He might, in fact, have put it in a wasp neighborhood.

Then what would have happened to me?

Did you not think of yourself as being white when you were growing up?

I didn't think about that at all.

I had no concept about that.

Luckily, my father was absolutely wonderful in that respect.

And

my playmates were, I didn't know it then, but they were black, African-American.

I thought we were all the same thing.

And

I don't think it's so unique in America for white kids to grow up with black youngsters and come up together as brothers and sisters.

What might be unique is not to veer away.

I could not veer away because that's where I wanted to be.

Those were my friends.

That's what I loved.

It wasn't the music that brought me to the black community.

It was the way of life.

I felt I was black.

What was it about the way of life?

Everything about it.

You know, different cultures have different characteristics.

And the characteristics of the African-American community became my own.

And I just...

wasn't willing to give that up to go become part of the mainstream community where people felt superior to black people and they oppressed black people and they

they practiced democracy and preached racism.

I didn't want to be part of that.

I want to stay in that sweet, beautiful black place in the black community.

My interview with Johnny Otis was recorded in 1989.

He died in 2012 at the age of 90.

After we take a short break, we'll hear from one of the singers he discovered, Eddie James.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.

This message comes from Schwab.

Everyone has moments when they could have done better.

Same goes for where you invest.

Level up and invest smarter with Schwab.

Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, where pure ingredients and sustainable brewing meet a legacy of craft.

Share one with a friend today and taste for yourself.

Sierra Nevada, taste what matters.

Please drink responsibly.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Humana.

Employees are the heartbeat of your business.

That's why Humana offers offers dental, vision, life, and disability benefits designed to help protect them.

Award-winning service, expansive networks, and modern benefits.

That's the power of human care.

To learn more about Humana's plans for companies of all sizes and benefits budgets, visit humana.com slash employer.

Support for NPR and the following message come from USPS.

With USPS Grab Advantage Service, it's like your shipment has a direct line to you.

It leaves the dock, you know about it.

It's on the road, you know.

And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're still in the know.

Here's the real game changer.

It's one journey, one partner, total peace of mind.

Check out USPS Ground Advantage service at usps.com slash in the know, because if you know, you know.

Let's continue our archive series, R ⁇ B, Rockabilly, and Early Rock and Roll with Rhythm and Blue singer Etta James.

She got her start at the age of 15 when she was discovered by Johnny Otis, who we just heard from, and began performing with his traveling R ⁇ B review.

By age 17, she had her first hit, Roll With Me Henry, an answer song to Hank Ballard's Work With Me, Annie.

After establishing herself as a rhythm and blues star in the late 50s and early 60s, her career was eclipsed by changes in pop music.

But later, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame.

Younger generations became aware of her for her recording of At Last after Beyoncé sang that song at President Obama's first inaugural, while he and Michelle Obama had their first dance as president and first lady.

My lonely days

are over

And life is like a song

When I spoke with Etta James in 1994, she had just released an album called Mystery Lady, paying tribute to jazz singer Billie Holiday.

The album featured featured James doing songs Holiday had recorded, like this one, The Very Thought of You.

The very thought of you,

and I forget to do

the little ordinary

things

that everyone ought to do.

I'm living in

a kind of daydream.

I'm

happy as a queen.

But foolish

though it may seem

to me

that's everything.

The mirror.

Better James, welcome to Fresh Air.

Tell me the story of why you wanted to record a Billie Holiday record.

Well, I thought that

since I grew up in, I did my teenage years in San Francisco, and my mother was such a Billie Holiday and jazz fan, mostly Billie Holiday.

And

I kind of, all along, I said, what, jazz?

You know, so to me, as a young kid, that was like, it was too disciplined.

It was too confining.

At least that's the way I thought.

And I thought you had to be really, really cool and had to be bourgeois and be bourgeois, you know, to do that.

And I didn't want to do that.

I mean, I was a sloppy kid with tattoos all over.

I wanted to be just wild.

I really think that I had to mature.

I got to the point where I'm 56 years old.

I think it took me maturing.

Now, let me ask you this.

You grew up in a foster home.

I think when your mother had you, she was 14 years old.

Right.

She was a kid.

And you know, I had feelings about all that kind of stuff for years and I went to therapy and all about it.

But then as I got older, I realized that

she really did the best for me.

She put me in a lovely home.

The people were, you know, lovely to me.

They never said that they were my real parents.

I mean, I always knew I had this good-looking, you know, high-stepping mom, and and she was like only 14 years older than me.

And

so she did the best for me because if she had tried to take me with her, she was just a child.

What would she have done with me?

Would I have been singing today?

Would I have been anything, you know?

What was your foster family like?

They were lovely.

They were older people, and they had property, and they lived in the east side, lower east side of Los Angeles.

And

my grandmother was a church lady, and they believed in,

you know, they gave me singing lessons at five.

And

so, you know.

So

when you were singing in the church choir,

did your grandmother or anyone else in the family get upset if on your own time you sang blues or any kind of secular music?

No, because

as long as my grandmother lived until I was, my grandmother died when I was 12.

So I sang gospel music from five until 12.

And

so my grandmother, she never, she wasn't one of those kind of people because I was already the prodigy child of the church.

And,

you know, and I did nothing but, and I love church.

I went to Bible camp and I was a little Christian girl.

And until my grandmother passed away at 12, that is when my mother came back, came to get me because I had nothing but my grandfather there in the house and my grandmother, my mother wanted me to be with her.

And she came the day of the funeral to pick me up to take me back to San Francisco.

So that's at San Francisco.

Oh, I was listening to little stuff on the sly, but I wasn't interested in secular music.

But once I got to San Francisco, I like I grew horns and the tail.

I really turned into, you know, the real street kid.

I was kind of like a runaway, but I had a mother, you know what I mean?

And I had a place to stay.

We're listening to my 1994 interview with singer Edda James.

We'll hear more of it after a break.

This is Fresh Air.

This message comes from REI Co-op.

A summit view, climbing L Cap, a faster mile, or that first 5K.

It all starts here, with gear, clothing, classes, and advice to get you there.

So you can wave to your limits as you pass them by.

Visit REI.com or your local REI co-op.

Opt outside.

This message comes from Capital One Commercial Bank.

Your business requires commercial banking solutions that prioritize your long-term success.

With Capital One, get a full suite of financial products and services tailored to meet your needs today and goals for tomorrow.

Learn more at capital1.com slash commercial.

Member FDIC.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Sutter Health.

A cancer diagnosis can be scary, which is why Sutter's compassionate team of oncologists, surgeons, and nurses work together as one dedicated team, providing personalized care for every patient.

It's a whole cancer team on your team.

Learn more at Sutterhealth.org.

You know what I'd like to do?

I'd like to play one of your rhythm and blues recordings that has a very gospel sound to it.

I want to play Something's Got a Hold On Me from 1961.

Do you think of this as having a gospel sound?

Matter of fact, it is a gospel song.

We wrote that song and we adapted it from

a gospel song.

And the gospel song was something's got a hold on me it must be the lord

and in your song is it must be love must be love right right now now don't get me because i'm not the one who decided to to but i was one of the writers i just kind of said okay well let's go rock and roll

this is edda james recorded in 1961

oh

sometimes i get a good feeling yeah

yeah

i

get a feeling that I never never never never had before no no

Yeah

I

just wanna tell you right now that uh

I believe

I really do believe that

something's got a hold on me here

Something's got a hole on me right now, child.

I must be loved.

Let me tell you now.

I've got a feeling I feel so strange.

Everything about me seems to have changed.

Step by step, I got a brand new walk.

I even sound sweeter when I talk.

I said, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Hey, hey, yeah.

Oh, it must be love.

It must be

Well, it wasn't too long after you moved in with your mother that you actually went on the road.

I mean, Johnny Otis, who had

a now famous Rhythm and Blues touring review,

got you into the show.

He discovered you, but how did you audition for him?

How did you find him or he find you?

Well, kind of, yeah, I think it was kind of a little bit of both, really, but he really found me because

at that time, my mother,

I had ran away from home and I went and I stayed with

two girls

one named Abby and Jean who later became the Peaches you know used to be Eddie James and the Peaches and we had we had wrote a an answer to

the song dance roll work with me Annie Hank Ballard record right so during those days you know everybody would make an answer you'd said work with me Annie then we'd said roll with me Henry and so one night

the the young girl and myself there were we were the same age we think we were both like 16 and the older sister was like 24

and she went out to a dance in in the fillmore district which was you know a heavy drag district of san francisco she went to see the johnny otis band and uh she was there because we couldn't go and we didn't want to go anyway we were like you know different from her we weren't like she was kind of like a groupie kind of a chick

and uh we were kind of like scared you know to do that so all of a sudden we got a call that night and it was Abby calling us back to say, listen,

guess who I'm with?

I'm with Johnny Otis.

And we go, oh, Johnny Otis.

And he said, yeah, Johnny Otis, I told him that we have a girl group and he says he wants to hear us.

And I said, yeah, right.

How does he want to hear us?

We're out there in the project and the boonies, right?

And she says, oh, he's at the hotel there and all the band and everything.

And

myself and the girl, we looked at each other and said, yeah, right.

now we're 15 year olds and we're gonna go to the hotel with the band and and Johnny Otis Johnny Otis was like about a 34 35 year old man so we said oh no that's all right that's all right we'll just we'll cool that and everything so Johnny Otis snatched the phone from her and it was Johnny Otis you know we heard that voice you know and he said hi how you doing and we said oh we're doing all right he says I heard I hear you guys got a great group I hear you got a song a couple couple of songs, and I'd like to hear you.

And he says, How about catching a cab?

I'll pay the cab fare and I'll meet you out front.

And I said, Oh, no, now this is getting heavy.

This older man is going to, you know, take us in a, send us in a cab.

So we said, okay, let's go on.

Johnny, he sounded pretty sincere.

And he said, don't worry, nobody's going to bother.

He says, okay, so we got up and got dressed, got in the cab and went down there.

Sure enough, as we pulled up, we saw this tall man.

You know, we'd all seen pictures of Johnny Otis with the nice hair, and he looked like he looked like a tall, kind of like a Creole man with a nice mustache and a beard.

And he had, you know, and the nice pompadora hair.

And he was standing there all stately.

And he had two or three more guys with him.

One guy was his manager, was a much older man.

And when we got there, he said, Oh, I'm glad to see you.

And

come on up, and let's see what let's hear you.

So we went upstairs to his room and we sang uh how deep is the ocean

and for all we know and street of dreams so so so you so you auditioned for johnny otis he liked your singing i suppose

and invited you to go on the tour but you were still a minor did you have to get your mother's permission well that was a trick there my mother i knew my mother wasn't going to let me go but i told him he says how old are you i said 18 which he knew that was a lie and And he says, well, you know what?

I would like to take you guys to Los Angeles tomorrow to make a record.

And he says, can I speak with your mother?

I said, no, I can't find her right now.

She's working.

And he says, well, can you go home and get permission from your mother, get something in writing stating that you can travel and give me your mother's address and phone number and all this stuff and saying that you can travel and you're allowed to travel with me and have her to sign it and date it.

I said, oh, yeah, I can do that.

So sure enough, that's what I did.

I went home, I wrote the note.

Oh, I see, right.

And I brought the note back with a tiny little bag, a little plastic bag or something with some clothes in it.

And myself and the two girls got on Johnny's bus and we split to L.A.

So, why don't we hear the first song that you recorded?

And this was

the first thing I recorded after going on the road with Johnny Otis.

And it's

Roll With Me, Henry, also called Wallflower.

You can call Dance With Me, Henry.

Yeah, called Dance With Me Henry, also.

And this is Etta James.

Hey, baby,

what do I have to do

to make you love me, too?

You got to roll with me, Henry.

All right, baby.

Roll with me.

Roll me, baby.

Roll with me.

Roll with me,

change my mind.

Roll with me and red.

You better roll it while the running is on.

Roll on, roll on, roll on.

While the cats are falling,

you better stop your stalling.

It's intermission in a minute.

So you better get with it.

Roll with me and red.

You better roll it while the runnin'

No, after you recorded this, Georgia Gibbs did a cover recording of this called Dance With Me, Henry.

And was that supposed to be the tamer version?

Yeah, well, you know, during those days,

you weren't allowed to say roll

because roll was like a

vulgar word.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, think about it.

They would probably burn Prince at the stake.

But you couldn't say roll so rather than they banned they banned my my record from the air and what happened what we had to do was sell it underground and not only that change the title to Wallflower and then when Georgia Gibbs did it she she just made the dance with me Henry so that you know all the kids could go buy it and you know take it home and you know listen to it because their parents weren't going to go for no roll are you kidding roll with me how do you roll with somebody?

We're listening to my 1994 interview with singer Edda James.

We'll continue the interview after a break.

This is Fresh Air.

This message comes from BetterHelp.

With all the talk about mental health and wellness these days, it can feel like there's advice for everything.

But how do you know what actually works for you?

BetterHelp therapists have a 4.9 rating from 1.7 million client reviews.

So you're in good hands with their licensed therapists who can help figure out what's best for you.

Visit betterhelp.com/slash npr for 10% off your first month.

Support for NPR and the following message come from GoodRX.

School's back, and so are the germs.

Thankfully, there's GoodRX.

With GoodRX, you can find big savings at the pharmacy all year round.

Compare prescription prices at over 70,000 pharmacies and instantly find discounts of up to 80%.

GoodRX is not insurance, but it may be Chacopay if you do have insurance.

Get simple, smart savings on back-to-school prescriptions at goodrx.com/slash fresh.

At some point in your career, you started dressing in evening gowns for performances and dying your hair blonde.

Tell me how you created that on-stage image for yourself.

I think probably by me being so young.

And I was oversized like I am now, but I mean, I had a real nice figure and I was tall and I remember

this singer Joyce Bryant she was a black singer and I was always admired her and I had two role models I liked Joyce Bryant because she wore fishtail gowns sequent fishtail gowns and she was black and she had the nerve to wear platinum hair and then I then also loved Jane Mansfield because Jane Mansfield had the blonde hair and had the like the poochy lips and the mold and all this.

So I think what I did is kind of combined.

My mother had bleached my hair carrot red at one point and then I said, well maybe that's not flamboyant enough.

So I just kind of went into Detroit one day and one of the fellows over there said oh Miss James, oh why you would probably look fabulous with block platinum hair.

So he bleached my hair blonde and it looked good and

so then I started I started What I was doing was trying to be a glamour girl because I had been a tomboy most of the time.

And I wanted to look grown.

You know, I wanted to wear tall, high-heel shoes and fishtail gowns and big long rhinestone earrings, you know.

So, how long did you dye your hair?

How, for how long?

Yeah.

I think, well, most of my career.

It was blonde,

platinum blonde, all the way,

I would think, up into the

the

70s

maybe the 72

and 73 something like that and why'd you stop

well

I you know

I wanted to I think I think think one thing about it I think things had changed I know things had changed and my career hadn't hadn't wasn't happening

And

I didn't think that I needed to be that, you know, that, to attract that much attention.

Another thing, I was on drugs at that time, and I think I really wanted a low profile.

Was it difficult for you to give up drugs?

Not when I got down to, you know, I'd given it up many a time.

You know, I'd kicked my habits many a time.

But when I went in 1974, I gave heroin up.

I was on methadone for maybe three or four years before that, so I had a couple of things to give up.

Was it hard to make a comeback after you

stopped using?

No, not really, because when I stopped using, you know, I wasn't the kind that went around and wanted people to pat me on the back about it.

It's just that I just picked up the, you know, picked up the...

the ball and started running with it.

The thing was, when I went to this rehabilitation center, I was around nothing but a lot of white kids.

And the thing where they were all younger than I was.

And I remember on Saturdays, they would play all these great rock and roll records.

The thing was, I was doing R ⁇ B, remember?

But the Z-Z-Tops

and the Rod Stewarts and the Rolling Stones and all those people, I never really, I was busy using drugs.

I wasn't there when Woodstock, I was there in New York when Woodstock was going on, but I didn't want to go to Woodstock.

I would rather go to Harlem, you know.

And

when I was in the program on Saturdays, we'd be cleaning up.

They would be playing

songs from all these people.

And I would say, ooh, man, that music is really happening.

And then what really made me think it is because my song, I'd Rather Go Blind.

They had a version of it by Rod Stewart.

And they kept saying, hey, this is the song you wrote.

Listen.

And I said, all right.

And then

while I was in that program, they would take me out

with support to kind of do little gigs here and there.

We went to Africa to do the Black Festival there when Muhammad Ali and George Foreman were supposed to fight.

We went to the American Song Festival.

And so my therapist, you know, psychologist was taking me around trying to just, you know, dip me in a little bit to let me know, you know, this is the business here that you've been in all your life.

Now, what's going to be different about this when you come out?

What are you going to do different?

Because you're going to get thrown right back in there.

So we would just do test runs and things.

In 1978, you opened in some cities for the Rolling Stones on their tour.

Were the Stones fans of yours?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Matter of fact, when I was in rehab at the same rehab center in the 70s, 74, and 75, I got a letter from Keith Richards that had told that had said to me that they were getting ready to do a tour.

You know, that they had had Tina Turner and they had had B.B.

King and they had had different people on their tour.

And they had wanted me on their tour.

And the letter that they wrote came to the rehabilitation center and the therapist got the letter and he called me to his office and read the letter.

And the letter said that they, he said, we would like to have you on tour with us.

We love your music.

And he says, but what you're doing right now is more important than what we could ever, ever do with you.

But we will be sure to come back and get you when you're ready.

And that was really cool.

That was when they came back in 1978 and kept their word.

I'd like to close our interview with another selection from your new album of songs that were recorded by Billie Holiday.

I thought we could play How Deep is the Ocean, since this is one of the songs you sang many years ago when you auditioned for Johnny Otis.

What do you think is the difference between what the song means to you now and what it meant to you then, and how you sing it now and how you sung it then?

I think

probably it's because

now

I really understand, you know what I mean?

I understand what I'm singing about.

You know, songs that I get, any song that I decide to sing or a song that someone sends to me or recommends, I like to be able to relate to that song, not just, you know, have a song there that talks about, come fly me to the moon, let me dangle on the stars.

That's not my cup of tea.

That's not real.

I want to sing real stuff.

I want to know what I'm singing about and I want to be able to really relate to that.

And I think that's what I can do now.

I think that's what I definitely do.

Matter of fact, I know I do.

Eddie James, it's been a pleasure.

I want to thank you a lot for talking with us.

Thank you so much, Terry.

My interview with Edda James was recorded in 1994.

How much

do I love you?

I'll you no lie

How deep is the ocean

How high is the sky

How many

times a day

do I

think of you

how

many roses

are sprinkled

with dew?

Ooh,

how far would I travel

to be

where you are?

how far is the journey

from here

to a star

and if I

ever lost you

How much would I cry

How deep is the ocean

Baby,

how high is the sky?

Tomorrow, as we continue our archive series, R ⁇ B, Rockabilly, and Early Rock and Roll, will feature interviews with two R ⁇ B singers from the 50s and 60s, Ruth Brown, whose recordings include Mama He Treats Your Daughter Me, and Laverne Baker, whose hits included Bumblebee, Tweedly Dee, and Jim Dandy.

I hope you'll join us.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Bodonato, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacunti, Anna Bauman, and John Sheehan.

Our digital media producer is Molly Sevi Nesper.

Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.

Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

Our co-host is Tanya Mosley.

I'm Terry Gross.

How far would I travel

to be

where

you are?

How far is the journey

from

here to a star?

This message comes from homes.com.

What kind of programs does this school have?

How are the test scores?

These are all things parents ask when they home shop.

That's why each listing on homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools.

Homes.com, we've done your homework.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Capella University.

Sometimes it takes a different approach to pursue your goals.

Capella is an online university accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

That means you can earn your degree from wherever you are and be confident your education is relevant, recognized, and respected.

A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.

Learn more about earning a relevant degree at capella.edu.

This message comes from Bombus.

Nearly 30% of marathoners end their race blistered.

Bombus running socks are strategically cushioned to help say bye to blisters.

Run the bombus.com/slash npr and use code npr for 20% off your first purchase.