![]() In Rage, James wrote that she renamed the song “Blind Girl,” to make it “more specific to the confusion I was feeling.” This version, with a slower tempo, saxophone-laden intro, and acoustic guitar, finds considerable new life in the song. In 1978, James teamed up with Jerry Wexler and recorded “I’d Rather Go Blind” as “Blind Girl” for the Warner Brothers album, Deep In The Night. ![]() I’d rather be a blind man, than to see you walk away from me… I do believe that a blind man would have an easier way to goĪnd his heart, his heart will never ever know The singer changes the song title to “I’d Rather Be A Blind Man,” while the chorus becomes: Though a single “Mary, Don’t You Take Me On No Bad Trip” was released at the time on Chess sub-label Cadet, an album by the same name remained in the Chess vaults until 2005, when it was released by a New York reissues label called Funky Delicacies (owned by the early hip-hop concern, Tuff City Records).įugi’s version also features trebly guitars as well as his own powerful voice, reminiscent of Marvin Gaye. In 1968, Fugi recorded his own version of the song for Chess Records, backed by a Detroit-based psychedelic-funk group called Black Merda. I sat in a piano room and began to write”-for James, the song was about being blind in her “love life” and her “personal ways,” she wrote.įor many listeners, the two and half minutes of “I’d Rather Go Blind”–James’ heartfelt performance, the subtle tremolo-picked electric guitar, hovering organ, and swaying horn lines-conveyed so much of the emotion the singer must have been feeling. When Leonard Chess heard the song for the first time, he had to leave the room, crying. I was in prison and didn’t know when I was going to get out. While Fugi poured his grief from being incarcerated into the song-he told an interviewer in 2006, “I got tired of losing and being down. (“It bugs me to this day that he still receives royalties,” James wrote.) According to the book, James gave her co-writing portion to her partner at the time, Billy Foster, a member of the ‘50s Los Angeles doo-wop group The Medallions, for tax purposes. The song was actually a co-write between James and a Detroit-based singer and songwriter named Ellington Jordan, who usually went by the nickname Fugi (sometimes alternately spelled Fuji), who was in prison. James told the story behind the song in her autobiography, Rage To Survive, a candid drug chronicle populated by junkies, dealers, and tales of trying to score (reminiscent of Keith Richard’s Life). The album, Tell Mama, produced one of her best songs, “I’d Rather Go Blind.” ![]() On the latter album’s cover, she looks out at the viewer with a wry smile and her trademark blonde hair.Īfter a number of albums produced by one or both of the Chess brothers, in the late summer of 1967, James went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama’s FAME Studios for an album produced by the studio’s owner Rick Hall. She released two LPs in 1961, At Last! and The Second Time Around, both on the Chess subsidiary Argo. Though this song has made a musical impact with its torturous cry of love lost, the first tears that fell for this song privately were truly that of Leonard Chess, head of her recording label, Chess Records in his intial hearing of the song.Though James had an early hit in her career with a song called “Dance With Me, Henry” (also known as “Roll With Me, Henry”) and success with a girl group called The Peaches in the ‘50s, the singer really hit her stride when she signed with Chicago’s Chess Records in 1960. King and Beyonce for the movie soundtrack, Cadillac Records, they all went to Jordan and the estate of Billy Foster. Unfortunately, when this choice was made and the song was rerecorded by artists like Clarence Carter, Rod Stewart, B.B. In addition to her personal problems, she also suffered with tax issues which motivated her decision to give her writing credit to Billy Foster. Even though Etta didn’t considered herself a “professional” songwriter at the time, this song heralded the depths of her experience with undeniable emotion which very well paralleled a violent relationship she didn’t know how to leave and a drug problem she didn’t know how to kick. However in truth, Etta herself wrote these lines with Jordan. Recorded in 1968 at the FAME Studio, this incredible single was said to be written by Ellington Jordan and her abusive ex, Billy Foster.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |