Etta James

"At Last" is, for millions of people, the song of love fulfilled.

They play it when they marry. When they finally find the person. When love arrives after the long wait.

It is pure consolation. Pure fullness.

The life of the woman who made it immortal was exactly the opposite.

Where she came from

Jamesetta Hawkins was born in Los Angeles on 25 January 1938. Her mother, Dorothy, was fourteen and did not raise her.

She never knew for certain who her father was. She believed he was a famous pool player, whom she met briefly in 1987, without ever confirming it.

She grew up in other people's houses, passed from one pair of hands to another, marked by abandonment from the start.

As an adult she fought heroin addiction for decades. It took her to prison in 1969, for violating parole. Her husband, Artis Mills, took a possession arrest on himself and served ten years. At thirty-six she spent seventeen months committed to a psychiatric hospital.

The irony

The voice that gave the world the song of perfect love belonged to a woman who spent much of her life looking for, and never quite finding, the calm she was singing about.

And that is exactly what you hear.

When Etta James sings "at last", she does not sing it from easy happiness. She sings it out of the hunger of someone who knows perfectly well what it is not to have it.

That is why it rings so true. She was not faking the feeling: she knew it from the side of the lack.

A point about the charts

Something usually exaggerated is worth saying plainly, because it makes the story better and not worse.

"At Last" was not an overwhelming hit. The single came out on 15 November 1960 and reached number forty-seven on the general chart. On the rhythm and blues chart it was second.

It is not even her song, or from her time: it was written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren for the 1941 film "Sun Valley Serenade", and Glenn Miller made it popular.

Its standing as an absolute classic came much later. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Recording Registry in 2009.

In other words: the song that plays today at every wedding in the world was, at the time, a middling hit by a twenty-two-year-old singer, with a cover of a tune from twenty years earlier. It took half a century to become what it is.

Everything else

Reducing her to "At Last" would be unfair, because she could do anything.

"I'd Rather Go Blind" is one of the most desolate songs ever recorded. "Tell Mama" is pure drive. "Something's Got a Hold on Me" is pure church euphoria.

Blues, soul, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, rock. She did not change style: she went straight through them all with the same voice.

Janis Joplin admired her and covered her live. Beyoncé played her on screen in 2008.

She won several Grammy awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2003. She died on 20 January 2012, in Riverside, at seventy-three, of complications from leukaemia. She also had Alzheimer's, diagnosed in 2008.

What to remember

Etta James is the proof that feeling in a voice is not acted: it is paid for.

Put on "At Last", "I'd Rather Go Blind" or "Tell Mama" and you will hear an instrument capable of everything — sweetness, fury, desolation — handled by someone who knew what she was talking about in every case.

And when you hear "at last", remember that the woman singing it spent her whole life waiting for something that almost never came.

Remember her like this: not as the woman from the wedding song, but as the one who sang love fulfilled better than anyone precisely because she knew it from the outside.

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Sources

Etta James, real name Jamesetta Hawkins, born in Los Angeles on 25 January 1938 and died in Riverside, California, on 20 January 2012, at the age of seventy-three, of complications from leukaemia; she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2008. Her mother, Dorothy Hawkins, was fourteen when she was born and did not raise her; she never had confirmation of her father's identity, although she believed he was the pool player Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone, whom she met briefly in 1987. She fought heroin addiction for decades; in 1969 she entered prison for violating parole, and her husband Artis Mills served ten years after taking on a possession arrest. At thirty-six she spent seventeen months committed to a psychiatric hospital. "At Last" was written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren for the film "Sun Valley Serenade" (1941) and made popular by the Glenn Miller orchestra; Etta James's version was released as a single on 15 November 1960 and reached number forty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the rhythm and blues chart. This is worth stating precisely because far higher positions are frequently attributed to it. The recording entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2009. Other notable songs: "I'd Rather Go Blind", "Tell Mama" and "Something's Got a Hold on Me". Janis Joplin admired her and performed her songs live; Beyoncé played her in the film "Cadillac Records" (2008). She won several Grammy awards, among them the lifetime achievement award in 2003, and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of her work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Billboard, the Library of Congress and other press coverage.