No matter how talented a singer might be, more often than not, what Mom says goes—at least, that’s what Etta James was dealing with when she was figuring out how to get to Los Angeles to cut a record with talent scout and bandleader Johnny Otis. At the time, Etta James was still Jamesetta Hawkins (Otis hadn’t given the performer her new stage name yet.) But no matter how skilled she was, Dorothy Hawkins, Etta James’ mom, was still calling the shots. She was only a teenager, after all—a kid.
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So, when Otis met Abbysinia Mitchell, a woman with whom James performed in a girl group called the Peaches, and invited the rest of the Peaches to his hotel room to audition for him, James knew she would have to do it secretly. But after Otis heard what the girls had to offer, it would be impossible to keep their late-night meet-up in Otis’ hotel room under wraps. The bandleader wanted the group to cut a record in Los Angeles. That meant that somehow, James would need her mother’s approval.
“That was a trick there,” James recalled in a 1994 interview with NPR. “I knew my mother wasn’t going to let me go.” James recalled telling Otis she was 18, which he knew was a lie, and him asking to speak to her mother directly. “I said, ‘No, I can’t find her right now. She’s working.’ And he says, ‘Well, can you go home and get permission from your mother? Get something in writing stating that you can travel and you’re allowed to travel. Have her to sign it and date it. So, sure enough, that’s what I did. I wrote the note.”
Etta James’ Iconic Debut Came Not Long After Forging Her Parental Permission Slip
Plenty of teenagers have forged their parent’s signature on a permission slip. (Except me, if you’re reading this, Mom). But few teens could say their fake note turned into a historic musical legacy. Except Etta James. The singer began cutting records under the direction of Johnny Otis in Los Angeles, eventually leading to the release of her debut studio album, At Last!, which she released on November 15, 1960. The album included several iconic tracks, including “A Sunday Kind of Love”, “I Just Want to Make Love to You”, and, of course, the title track.
The career that followed was a tumultuous but impressive one. As Vulture eloquently put it, “[Etta James] wasn’t churchy like Aretha, she wasn’t silky like Sarah Vaughn, she wasn’t skinny like Diana Ross, but of all the great female R&B singers to come of age after the rise of rock ‘n’ roll, Etta James was the most street. She shot dope, got arrested for writing bad checks and forging scripts, claimed to be pool player Minnesota Fats’ illegitimate daughter, and blew up to 400 pounds. Plus, she scared the s*** out of you.”
It was this attitude that inevitably pushed her to forge that fateful permission slip as a teenager. Whether Johnny Otis believed that the note was real was of no real importance. Getting something in writing was the main thing. Otis knew that James’ voice would do the rest, and indeed it did.
Over 50 years after its release, the title track from Etta James’ debut remains a staple in the oldies canon, is played at countless weddings every year, and is still sweeping listeners off their feet with James’ first ascending “at laaaast.”
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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