It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s birthday today! Ruth Brown was born in 1928, one of seven children. Her father was a choir director, and she grew up surrounded by gospel, but she was drawn to chanteuses like Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan. As you can imagine, there was conflict in the home. Dad would not be happy to know his teenage daughter was sneaking out at night to sing torch songs in USO clubs. So Ruth did what she had to do. She ran away from home and never looked back.
She flailed for a bit – of course! She was 16, 17! She did some big-band-hopping, trying out for singer jobs, getting those jobs, getting fired, etc. She was already interacting with some now-legendary people, like Lucky Millinder and other band leaders. It seems everyone who heard her were impressed, but there wasn’t any certainty on where she might fit. People loved the voice, but couldn’t envision what she might do with it, what material she should sign. This took place in 1948-9, and it is the awkward transition period into the 50s. In a matter of just 5 or 6 years, all the kids wanting to be country singers switched to rockabilly, and all the kids wanting to be torch singers (Brown was one) switched to r&b. Some switched due to commercial/financial reasons. If you wanted to make a buck, you wanted to participate in the new trend. Some switched later in the game and it was clearly a jump-on-the-bandwagon thing (this happened a year or so into the wave). There was a lot of talent out there and the genres were rigid structures you had to fit yourself into. Wanda Jackson assumed she’d be a Grand Ole Opry country singer. Elvis thought he’d join a gospel quartet. Someone like Brown assumed she’d sing in jazz clubs like Billie Holiday. It was 1949. Nobody really saw what was coming, but Brown was in that first wave.
Things don’t change on their own. People make changes, here, there, and suddenly overnight – everything is different. And people go, “When did everything change??”
Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson, co-founders of Atlantic, heard Brown and signed her in 1949. They tried her out on a song called “So Long”. Even the studio musicians at Atlantic, seasoned professionals who worked with everyone, were blown away by her. They scrambled to put some muscle behind her in their accompaniment. “So Long” wasn’t even an official recording session but Atlantic was so pleased with the result they decided to release it any way.
Brown crushes it. This was the kind of material she wanted to be doing. You can feel it. It was a surprise hit!
Atlantic had other plans, though. They didn’t want torch songs-big-band-jazz from her. Her next single was “Teardrops From My Eyes”, which has almost nothing in common with “So Long”, except the same lead singer. It’s 1950. It’s not “the moment before”, because stuff was already being stirred up out there … but it was starting to build. And so … :
“Teardrops From my Eyes” was a huge hit for her and for Atlantic.
Here she is, singing the song live in 1954.
An even bigger hit was “Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean”.
We’re full-on rock ‘n roll now, and it’s only been a year or so since “So Long”. Things moved fast. Brown had hit after hit after hit, so much so that Atlantic was referred to as The House that Ruth Built. She toured a lot, made television appearances, appeared on variety shows. Her numbers are impressive: she sold millions, the songs all charted. Here she is singing “Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean”:
“One of the reasons that I was what we considered popular, hot, ‘red hot,’ was the fact that I was very involved — I was visible. I was one of the few female artists that made appearances in the deep South. Every place that there was a stage, no matter what the economic situation was, even in the midst of the worst period of segregation–I was always there. I made personal appearances.”
And then, just as quickly, it all went away. She was forgotten – so much else happened in the mid-50s into the 60s – the British invasion all that – and Brown just wasn’t in that conversation. She joined other conversations, though. Her career is fascinating: she appeared on Broadway, she won a Tony, she played Mahalia Jackson, she toured with Bonnie Raitt, she went back to her jazz roots, she published a memoir, she became a star AGAIN, and people didn’t even seem to know she was famous BEFORE. John Waters of course knew and he put her in Hairspray:
Ruth Brown inspired Janis Martin. Who is Janis Martin, you might say? Glad you asked. Both women lived long enough to actually appear together onstage in 2006.
Brown died in 2006, so that personal appearance was very near the end.
I don’t want to say one part of her legacy is more important than others, because it’s not for me to say. But in the mid-1980s, she “took on” Atlantic, demanding royalties for all the work she did for them. A lot of the labels sprouting up in the ’50s were no longer around, but Atlantic was, and Atlantic was still a major player, and still rich. They clearly had the money. Their initial offer she rejected: “Crumbs from a rich man’s label.” Her campaign was loud and it made headlines. Rev. Jesse Jackson supported it publicly. And … she won. She freakin’ won! Not only did Atlantic pay her, she also negotiated for the other artists who recorded for Atlantic back then, many of whom were broke, living in poverty, despite having had hit records for Atlantic in the 1950s. Brown negotiated a settlement for THEM, too.
This speaks to the kind of person Ruth Brown was. There were so many people owed money, and those people didn’t have successful recording careers in the intervening years like she did. Brown sat down with the Atlantic lawyers and Ertegun – who was still around! – to discuss ways Atlantic could help. The result was the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, still in existence today, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving rhythm and blues, and helping artists in need.
Her legacy lives on. It’s all part of the beautiful house Ruth built.
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Oh, my God, that last video of Janis+Ruth, such a jewel! Each singer giving and taking directions from the other, such a lovely rapport between them! The public went wild, no wonder why. Musicians are a great family.
Thank you Sheila, you fill cultural gaps in my life so beautifully!
Clary – I know!! I’m so glad someone filmed it – and then someone else uploaded it! YouTube has its issues but … it really is an incredible place to archive these moments of history! it’s important!
And yes at a certain point – what matters is the art, and how that art represents your life journey – and to see two elderly women acknowledge this, in front of a crowd of people who were probably decades younger than them, and who weren’t alive during their first heyday – is just incredibly moving!