I think I first really noticed Ruth Brown when I bought a working jukebox for my singles and I managed to get the singles that were already loaded into it thrown in. The single that reached out of the speakers and grabbed me and in particular the kids, and party guests, was, This Little Girls Gone Rockin’ by Ruth Brown. It’s from 1958 and has the great King Curtis blowin’ sax. Great rockin forward beat, Ruth Brown - Miss Rhythm – The Girl With Tear In Her Voice makes it a dance floor and singing favourite. Anyway we played it and played it and played it again. Then I went out a bought a few other Ruth Brown CDs. Once I heard Ruth doing Lucky Lips I realized how insipid Cliff Richard’s version was.
She was born Ruth Weston on Jan. 12, 1928, in Portsmouth, Va., the oldest of seven children. From the age of 4 she played and sang alongside her father, who was noted for his strong voice, at the local Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In summer, she picked cotton with her brothers an sisters at her grandmother’s farm in North Carolina.
As a teenager, she performed at U.S.O. clubs at nearby naval stations. She ran away from home at 17, working with a trumpeter named Jimmy Brown and using his last name onstage. She married him, or thought she did; he was already married. But she was making a reputation as Ruth Brown, and the name stuck.
She played with big bands, around 1946, and then a few years later she was “discovered” and recommended to Atlantic Records.
On the way to New York City, however, she was seriously injured in an automobile accident and hospitalized for most of a year; her legs, which were smashed, would be painful for the rest of her life. She stood on crutches in 1949 to record her first session for Atlantic, and the bluesy ballad “So Long” became a hit.
You can hear her influence on most of the next two decades female singers, from Aretha to Etta; even Little Richard acknowledged that he'd based his vocal stylings on those of Brown. And although she had no formal training, she had a natural ear for music - Dizzy Gillespie observing that " Ruth Brown could hear a rat wee on cotton."
She had at least 10 hits in the ‘50s and between 1950 and 1955 Ruth scored 5 #1 hits on Billboards R&B charts. She led a good life with cadillacs and musician lovers. The hits dried up in the ‘60s and she worked as a teacher –aide and housemaid to support herself and her sons.
In the late 70s she made a comeback and never stopped. She was an outspoken advocate onstage and in interviews, about the exploitative contracts musicians of her generation had signed. Many hit-making musicians had not recouped debts to their labels, according to record company accounting, and so were not receiving royalties at all. Shortly before Atlantic held a 40th-birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in 1988, the label agreed to waive unrecouped debts for Ms. Brown and 35 other musicians of her era and to pay 20 years of retroactive royalties.
The next time you hear the record industry talk about how they "support artists", or how downloads effect their profits, try picturing the pile of records lost to the world because labels like Atlantic kept R&B singers in poverty, cleaning rooms to live when they should have been making music. Atlantic was known at one stage as The House the Ruth paid for.
Ruth was the best, she could sing jazz, R&B and Broadway – make them all sassy, rockin’ and with that trademark Ruth Brown Teardrop in the voice.
Ruth Brown died Friday in a Las Vegas area hospital from complications after a heart attack and stroke earlier in the week. She was 78.
Go and buy The Best of Ruth Brown – Cat of the Week
I wrote my mom a letter
And this is what I said
Well-a, well-a, well-a, well-a
I washed all the dishes
And I did a lot more
I even bought the dinner
At the grocery store
Now, Mom, you'll find
The key next door cause
This little girl's gone rocking
I left some biscuits for the pup
I put fresh water in his cup
And now I'm off
I'm gonna live it up cause
This little girl's gone rocking
Well, I'm be home about
Twelve tonight and not a
Minute, minute, minute later
Don't forget the front door lock
That's all for now
I'll see you later, mater
You'll find these things
That you wanted done
I'm off to meet that special one
Boy, oh, boy, will we have fun
Cause this little girl's gone rocking
Well, I'm be home about
Twelve tonight and not a
Minute, minute, minute later
Don't forget the front door lock
That's all for nowI'll see you later, mater
You'll find these things
That you wanted done
I'm off to meet that special one
Boy, oh, boy, will we have fun
Cause this little girl's gone rocking
Yeah, this little girl's gone rocking.....
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