Sometimes a moment lingers and the memory it produces is like a snapshot.
I hadn’t heard of Etta James until the late 1980’s, even though she started her career decades before. I instantly became a fan. She was just then returning to the limelight and performing at a small venue in midtown Manhattan. I made sure I was there. The club had two floors. I was upstairs standing against a railing and watching Ms. James perform on a small stage below.
Her sultry sound and familiar tunes, from the beginning, evoked explosive applause. And then she warmed up. From my perspective above, I couldn’t tell if Ms. James was short or tall, but there was no doubt that she had ample flesh on her bones. She became loose and sassy. She gyrated her hips and sashayed her voluptuous form. She was seducing everyone with her grit, her grinds, her teasing, and her extraordinary voice. The audience whooped and hollered. Some of us screamed. Some of us cried. She cast a spell. We were all her fools that night.
