Dig a little deeper, though, and you realize that Etta James in full splendor was simply breathtaking. She could stop your heart with the way she turned a phrase or set your feet in motion with her rhythm. Dialed down or at full throttle, James always made you wonder how she channeled that vast well of emotion.
To see and hear what I’m talking about, go to YouTube and find the video of James singing “I’d Rather Go Blind’’ in 1987 in a duet with Dr. John. (You want the 5:54 clip; the quality is better.) The original version appeared as a simmering ballad on 1968’s “Tell Mama,’’ but nearly 20 years later, James was still feeling her way around it.
The live performance is brutal, a storm of laidback blues and thunderous notes, and as raw as if the song’s betrayal had happened just earlier that evening. James punishes that microphone until you pity it. At one point she begins to pounce on the word “baby,’’ booming its syllables like they’re meant to sound like gunfire.
Dr. John eventually saunters over from his piano, looking like a dog that’s just peed on the rug. He’s supposed to appease James for stepping out on her - “It wasn’t nothin’ serious / I guess I was just a little delirious’’ - but even he knows it’s in vain. Hell hath no fury like this particular woman scorned.
At the end of the performance, James embraces Dr. John, her head resting on his shoulder, and I like to imagine James is thinking what I’m thinking: Where the hell did that just come from?
In just six minutes, that, to me, is the essence of Etta James. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. You didn’t need to read her harrowing 1995 autobiography, “Rage to Survive,’’ to know she struggled through a troubled childhood, abusive men, stints in jail, and addictions to heroin and cocaine. All that turmoil was right there in the grooves of her records, in that great big voice that could howl like a feral animal.
