R&B Legend Remembered
According to the New York Times, R&B pioneer, Ruth Brown, died yesterday after being in a coma for three weeks at a Las Vegas hospital. Brown, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, had previously suffered a heart attack and a stroke.
Ruth Brown, or "Miss Rhythm," had a career that spanned six decades. She started out as "the girl with a tear in her voice," with hit singles in the 1950s such as "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and "5-10-15 Hours." She then went on to play "Motormouth Maybelle" in John Walters' movie, Hairspray, and also received a Tony Award for her role in Black and Blue on Broadway.
Ms. Brown was born Ruth Weston in Portsmouth, Virginia on January 12, 1928. By age 17, she was performing in U.S.O. clubs and ran away from home to work with trumpeter, Jimmy Brown. She married him, but it was soon discovered that he already had a wife. However, she decided to keep the name.
In 1955, Ms. Brown married Earl Swanson, a saxophonist, and had her second child, Earl. Her first child was given the name Ronald Jackson after saxophonist Willis (Gator Tail) Jackson, but it is believed his real father was Clyde McPhatter of the Drifters. After she divorced Mr. Swanson, she was married to a police officer, Bill Blunt, for three years in the 1960s.
Around this time, Brown became an advocate for musicians' rights as she spoke out and joined protests and campaigns to end exploitative contracts. She also encouraged record labels to improve royalties for R&B artists.
Although her string of hits had ended in the early 1960s, she made a come back in 1989 and her album, Blues on Broadway won a Grammy Award for Best Female Jazz Vocal Performance. She was a radio host on the public radio shows "Harlem Hit Parade" and "BluesStage." Recently, she lived in Long Island, continued to tour and recorded songs for John Sayles' upcoming movie, Honeydripper. In fact, she was originally scheduled to fly to Alabama to act in the film, before she became ill.
Bonnie Raitt, who once sang a duet with Ms. Brown, stated, "I can't really say that I've heard anyone that sounds like Ruth, before or after. She was a combination of sass and innocence, and she was extremely funky. She could really put it right on the beat, and the tone of her voice was just mighty... And she had a great heart."