At 51, Singer Etta James Is on a Roll

With her first major label album in years behind her and another in the works, her soulful 1960s rhythm-and-blues hits for Chess records seeing new light on re-releases and a streak of recent film soundtrack credits and on-screen singing roles, Etta James is enjoying a career upswing at age 51.

“I’m doin’ real well, but I don’t look at it like I’m out of hard times,” James said over the phone this week from her home in Los Angeles. “With me, I’m always going to pay dues. I don’t say, ‘I’ve paid my dues.’ No, I’ve only paid some of them, and I’ll be paying them the rest of my life.”

It’s a sobering thought, coming from a woman whose conversation is open, enthusiastic and zestfully opinionated. But a good deal of James’ music has been about the everlasting dues--the sorrows of women who love and lose, who offer up fiery reserves of affection and sexuality without any guarantee that it will be accepted or reciprocated.

“Shakey Ground,” a song title from James’ well-received 1988 album “Seven Year Itch,” could apply to much of the emotional terrain the singer has covered during her 35-year career. James, who appears Sunday at the Pacific Amphitheatre’s weekend jazz festival, has had to negotiate that shaky ground in her personal life as well as on her records. Perhaps that is why she looks at life as a continual extraction of dues. In compensation, paying hard dues has enabled James to sing about emotional upheaval with unquestionable depth, conviction and feeling.

Born Jamesetta Hawkins to a 14-year-old mother and a father she says she never knew, James found early stability living with her grandparents in Los Angeles.

“I had a wonderful childhood,” James said. “The camping, the Bible schools, I had all the stuff that I wanted. When my grandmother passed away when I was 12, my mom came and repossessed me the day of the funeral and took me to San Francisco. I went from being sheltered--the nice little church girl--to living in a rooming house. I just turned incorrigible, drinkin’ wine, smokin’ weed, and running the streets.”

James’ street life also included singing on corners with a girl group called the Creolettes. In 1954, they approached R&B; bandleader Johnny Otis after one of his San Francisco shows. Otis invited James to come back to Los Angeles with him. After forging a note of permission from her mother, James moved in with Otis and his family. By early 1955, she had topped the national R&B; charts with “Roll With Me Henry,” an openly bawdy song that was retitled “The Wallflower” to disguise its sexy slant from would-be censors.

After touring on the R&B; circuit with bands led by Otis and Clifton Chenier, James struck out on her own when she turned 18 and started learning about the music business dues.

“I’ll never forget the time in St. Louis when I did a gig with Jackie Wilson and at the end of the night I didn’t have any money because the booking agent took it all. (Wilson) gave me and (James’ backup singer) several hundred dollars. He always looked out for people like that.”

James used the money to move on to Chicago, where she again ran out of cash. “It was the first time in my life I’d ever starved. I didn’t eat for 3 days.” But a local music agent rescued her, and James eventually signed with Chess records, where she went on to score a string of 1960s R&B; hits in styles ranging from flowery, Ray Charles-style orchestrations to raw, Southern-fried soul.

But even when things were going well on the charts, James found herself saddled with drug problems. There was a heroin addiction that James said she finally kicked in 1975. A few years later, the problem was cocaine: “I thought I was clear of the heroin, but I heard cocaine wasn’t habit forming. I was having plenty of gigs, doing all right, but I never came home with any money. I was drinking Remy Martin, smoking cigarettes, and (taking) cocaine. I put down all those things in one day and never touched it again. But now I know you have to be in recovery all your life.”

One problem that James says she has learned to live with, if not resolve, is a stormy relationship with her mother. While James thanked her mother on the album cover of “Seven Year Itch,” she said the relationship remains thorny and that in past years it was one of her reasons for trying to escape with drugs.

“She’s never been to one of my shows. In 35 years, she’s never seen me perform,” said James, who has two sons, ages 21 and 13. “It’s upsetting to me, but she’s one of these people that you don’t even talk to about it. Everybody wants approval from their parents, I think, and she’s never approved of this (music) business. It is a big sore spot and a big hurt, but after 51 years I’ve accepted it.”

James said it was much easier for her to accept her 7 years without a recording contract during the 1980s.

“I never really worried about it. I was still gigging; I was doing festivals; I had my set clubs I would work in. I knew something would happen eventually.”

James had faith that her blend of blues, rock ‘n’ roll and R&B; would come back in style. With roots music resurging in the late ‘80s, she signed with Island Records and released “Seven Year Itch,” which won praise for recapturing the muscular Southern-soul style that James had delivered in such late-’60s signature songs as “Tell Mama” and “I’d Rather Go Blind.” James also appeared recently as a blues nightclub singer in the Gregory Hines film “Tap” and collaborated with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics on “Avenue D,” theme song for the movie “Roof Tops.”

For her comeback album, James said, “I wanted that Southern collard-greens-and-cornbread feeling, but I wanted more of a rock edge that would bring it up sound-wise into this era. But we didn’t really get there.”

For the follow-up, which James said she will start to record on Monday, the plan is to color her straight R&B; sound with such contemporary devices as drum machines and synthesizers. James said she was impressed by the technological-but-funky sound that Steve Winwood achieved on his hit single, “Roll With It.”

“That’s what I call an authentic, R&B; high-tech sound,” James said. “You have to get a certain sound to be able to get this stuff played on the radio. That’s what we need, and that’s what we’re getting this time.”

Old fans may frown at the prospect, but James is confident that a few machines will not keep her from sounding as authentically soulful as ever.

“I’m not gonna surrender my guns, and I’m not going to turn into some Wonder Bread,” she said. “I’m going to sound like me any time I sing.”

Etta James sings Sunday in the Pacific Jazz Festival at the Pacific Amphitheatre, 100 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. The festival runs Saturday and Sunday from 3 until 11 p.m. Tickets: $19.50 to $33. Information: (714) 634-1300.