I just clung closer to her and knew the boogeyman couldn't get me, not as long as Mama held me in her arms, not as long as I didn't think about the little girl who had been cut up and stuffed in a trunk -- only a block away from our house -- the one crime that freaked me out when I was still very…
Catalog
Etta James
Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins; January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was 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. James's powerful, 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, but was removed from that list in the 2011 "Special Collector's Edition" update. 2Early life and career: 1938–1959 Hawkins was born on January 25, 1938, in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Hawkins, who was 14 at the time. Her father has never been identified. James speculated that she was the daughter of pool player Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone, whom she met briefly in 198
One mother was nurturing while the other was neurotic; one father was missing -- the eternal mystery -- while the other, who wasn't my father but the one I called Daddy, was around. He was a good man who liked his liquor.
I remember Mama poured me milk and tried to show me how to drink from a cup, but I wouldn't wait. I didn't want to be shown anything. I took the cup and spilled the milk all over me.
But whose child was I? The question was there when I was born. It's still there. The question haunts me, worries me, troubles my sleep. You wouldn't think it would matter after all this time, but it does. Something deep inside me needs to know.
I had two mothers, two childhoods, lived two different lives in two different cities. Maybe that's why I became two different people.