James then finished the rest of the song with Jordan, but gave her own songwriting credit to her then partner, Billy Foster of The Medallions, for that most unforgiving and soulless of motives…tax reasons. According to James, the outline was written by her friend Ellington ‘Fugi’ Jordan and shown to her when she visited him in California’s Chino prison during a stint for robbery (Jordan, incidentally, collaborated with progressive Detroit funk rock band Black Merda on his own psych funk record Mary Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip – with he and Etta’s song retooled as ‘I’d Rather Be A Blind Man’ – and was subsequently instrumental in the band being signed to Chess Records). ![]() There are few songs that deliver a gut punch like this so concisely a confessional of such emotional depth delivered over just three economical verses. Its understated power lies in the negative space – the absence of anger in Etta’s voice, the absence of resentment towards the track’s unidentified woman. The song weighs heavy with pain and resignation memories and ghosts. Only Hank Williams equalled Etta in digging straight to the core of hurt and heartache and laying out the wreckage. Imagine that? She may have been on to something. On her second live album, Red-Hot & Live, Etta introduces the song, name-dropping Rod the Mod and telling the assembled that she thinks of ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ as a country & western song – that she always fantasised about being a country & western singer. Funnily enough, though, she had a lot of time for Rod Stewart’s 1972 version of its monumental B-side. Never liked singing it,” she later admitted. Recorded in ’67 and released the following year, ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ appeared on the flipside of the ‘Tell Mama’ single, a song James didn’t rate as highly as the rest of us. “Something told me it was over/ When I saw you and her…” The briefest of pauses, before James delivers the killer blow – “… talking.” From Etta’s lips, it carries so much weight a litany of implications and finalities implicit in that one word. ![]() There are few stables of musicians that were as taut, intuitive and finely honed as those players at Muscle Shoals, and they shape the track’s soulful foundations, urging the story to unfold on the crescendo of Roger Hawkins’ snare roll. ![]() ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ was laid down at Muscle Shoals’ FAME Studios for the sessions that culminated in James’ eighth album, Tell Mama, a collection where each rhythm track and organ vibration, horn punch and guitar lick is as subtly executed as the last. In two and a half minutes Etta James took every song of broken love and heartache up to that point, every songwriter and singer who tried to articulate their pain, and brushed them aside. One of the most brutally frank lyrics ever bled onto a page, dispensed through one of music’s most devastating vocal performances. You can thank me later.Ĭheck out her upcoming area shows here and her European dates here.“I would rather go blind, boy/ Than to see you walk away from me” Do yourself a favor and find out why our best kept local music secret is about to be exposed. The Julie Rhodes Band have a bunch of concerts coming up in May before leaving for their first ever European tour at the end of that month. You should probably get to one of her upcoming shows before everyone else catches on, and I can assure you that time is waning. Julie Rhodes and her band deliver that punch in full force right to your heart with their version. Etta James magnificently laid the groundwork on this track and created an emotional punch. Those familiar with her live show know this tune has become a standard during her performance, bringing shouts of joy as the guitar refrain kicks in and the keys smoothly fall into place. Rhodes’s take on the Etta James classic brings new life to the song as she belts out each lyric with enough soulful ferocity to bring chills to your spine and tears to your eyes. This is the second time we have focused on the Somerville musician, and for good reason. ![]() The latest WFMO X Music Savage Show “Song of the Week†spotlight is on the fantastic cover of “I’d Rather Go Blindâ€Â from our very own Julie Rhodes.
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