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Rage To Survive: The Etta James Story
One of the great women of American music, equally at home singing blues and jazz, Etta regales us with tales of her chaotic childhood, the stars she has known, and her troubled trip to stardom in this mesmerizing autobiography.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
March 26, 2013
This book is absolutely phenomenal. After reading her biography you feel like you personally know Etta James. I love her honesty. She didn't hold back any detail. She had such an amazing story to tell and boy did she tell it.
She was born Jamesetta (named after her aunt and uncle) to a mother only 14 years older than her. Her mother was black and her father, a man she never knew, was white.
She tells of living in a time of segregation where the blacks made fun of her because she was light skinned and the whites didn't accept her because she was black, her struggle with drug addiction, her choppy relationship with her mother and so much more. It's a shame that she passed away last year. I would've loved the chance to hear her sing live. She went through so much and was able to overcome it in the end.
Love, love, love this book. It's going right into my favorites section and I recommend it to all.
She was born Jamesetta (named after her aunt and uncle) to a mother only 14 years older than her. Her mother was black and her father, a man she never knew, was white.
She tells of living in a time of segregation where the blacks made fun of her because she was light skinned and the whites didn't accept her because she was black, her struggle with drug addiction, her choppy relationship with her mother and so much more. It's a shame that she passed away last year. I would've loved the chance to hear her sing live. She went through so much and was able to overcome it in the end.
Love, love, love this book. It's going right into my favorites section and I recommend it to all.
May 18, 2018
Miss James shared with us her journey through life’s hacks such as skin color. While Americans who are Descendants of Freed Slaves judged her on her skin lightness, while whites judged her because they believed she was passing. Learning her daddy might have been Minnesota Fats. Etta’s lifeline who was her adoptive mother’s bad health and eventual death who had cared for Etta since was twelve. A mother who was sometimes a prostitute. Racism while traveling to performing gigs in the south. Dealing with Jesse Sarge Roger her adoptive daddy, Mama Lee’s husband, mental unstableness and her biological mother, Dorothy.
Etta saw hardships that many of us will only experience through books. While learning her craft and the business she met many of the great women and men musicians of that era and some who served as her mentor. Once Etta got her legs she opened for acts like the Rolling Stones.
To beat a jail rap the judge allowed Etta to opt for a seventeen months stint jail or a stint at the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital so she could get off drugs. Etta embraced wisdom and chose Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital.
Though Miss James lived a hard life Rage to Survive wasn’t a sad read because Miss James displayed strength and courage that made me cheer her on.
Etta saw hardships that many of us will only experience through books. While learning her craft and the business she met many of the great women and men musicians of that era and some who served as her mentor. Once Etta got her legs she opened for acts like the Rolling Stones.
To beat a jail rap the judge allowed Etta to opt for a seventeen months stint jail or a stint at the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital so she could get off drugs. Etta embraced wisdom and chose Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital.
Though Miss James lived a hard life Rage to Survive wasn’t a sad read because Miss James displayed strength and courage that made me cheer her on.
February 26, 2014
Around 2006, I attended the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
I was lounging in my chair waiting for Buddy Guy to play, when Etta James took the stage. I had no experience listening to her and was blown away by her performance. Raw, in your face emotions and raunchier than anything I had ever seen. Mind you, this was a large diabetic woman, in her late 60’s who sang sitting in a chair.
So I grabbed her biography Rage to Survive when I got home. A more appropriate title, couldn’t have been made.
Born to a 14 year old mother, whose father May have been Minnesota Fats, Etta’s life was filled with absentee parental figures, fame, drugs, prison and disastrous relationships but every time she fell she got back up and slugged her way through.
Like the woman the book is about, it is rough and a grammatical nightmare. However, I loved the book and would recommend it to any blues lover.
I was lounging in my chair waiting for Buddy Guy to play, when Etta James took the stage. I had no experience listening to her and was blown away by her performance. Raw, in your face emotions and raunchier than anything I had ever seen. Mind you, this was a large diabetic woman, in her late 60’s who sang sitting in a chair.
So I grabbed her biography Rage to Survive when I got home. A more appropriate title, couldn’t have been made.
Born to a 14 year old mother, whose father May have been Minnesota Fats, Etta’s life was filled with absentee parental figures, fame, drugs, prison and disastrous relationships but every time she fell she got back up and slugged her way through.
Like the woman the book is about, it is rough and a grammatical nightmare. However, I loved the book and would recommend it to any blues lover.
October 8, 2016
Rage to Survive, published in 1995 after R & B singer Etta James won a Grammy for the Billie Holiday tribute album she dedicated to her aloof jazz hipster mother Dorothy who she refers to as the “Mystery Lady,” is derived from a series of conversations between Etta James and David Ritz, who authored several biographies about musicians like Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and is responsible for writing the lyrics for “sexual healing.” From an uncertain childhood in San Francisco with an adolescent mother who would abandon Jamesetta Hawkins with benevolent friends who would establish normalcy only for Dorothy to disrupt everything, to learning to sing as a child in a Baptist church choir surrounded by sassy homosexuals (who she still refers to as “secret angels”), to teenage delinquency and rebellion against the “Suzy Creamcheeses” of 1950s conformity with Jamesetta in girl gangs with friends like Sugar Pie DeSanto, forming a girl group called the Peaches and writing her first song “Roll With Me Henry,” to travelling with some iconic R & B performers as a teenager through the segregated South where her rebellious attitude almost got these artists arrested in situations when racist cops questioned her race. Etta James voice truly is captured in this prose transcription with vivid and luridly frank details about being the teenaged chaperone to the younger Shirelles at an orgy with Bo Diddley’s perverse camera and Little Richard’s voyeurism. She is very candid about her drug addictions (heroin, cocaine, codeine, alcohol) and the criminal backgrounds of herself and every R & B performer and promoter. Her best friends were often prostitutes, pimps, thieves, groupies, drag queens and gay men, at times her manager also supplied her with junk. One of my favorite anecdotes from Ms. James probably would shed some light on the disparaging remarks she once made at a Seattle concert about Beyonce performing “At Last” at the Obama inauguration. Dinah Washington was in the audience at a concert in the early 1960s and the young Etta James thought she would impress “The Queen” by performing one of Dinah’s hit songs. Mid-song all Etta would hear was the sound of breaking glass as Dinah Washington knocked over a table in the club to reach the stage. After a verbal confrontation where Dinah Washington berated Etta, chasing her offstage and a more sensible reconciliation in Etta’s dressing room, Dinah explained that as a matter of courtesy you never perform another singer’s song when they are in attendance. Ms. James had a long road to recovery from addiction and at the end of these memoirs was still coping with over-eating and obesity, something that would require gastric bypass surgery in 2010. But, I love her unpretentious directness, her street wisdom, her obvious passion for the music and respect for other musicians, her progressive views about Feminism and the Gay and Lesbian community that had a hand in fashioning her tough girl persona and style, and kept her career alive in San Francisco clubs in the early 1980s when she did not have a record label and was struggling with legal battles and addiction. If you want to know more about R & B, Soul, the Blues from someone who has been performing since before Elvis Presley appropriated Black music read “Rage to Survive.”
November 17, 2015
Man this book was incredible! I've been listening to "Etta James Rocks the House" (recorded in Nashville) for 25 years. I know that album forwards and backwards, but knew nothing about the life of the warm, charismatic, drug-addicted, loving, wild, down-to-earth, troubled woman who sang it the hell out of those songs. A favorite detail was her continuous close friendships with drag queens and other gay men, who as a kid she thought of as "secret angels." This book is written in a way that makes it feel like Etta is talking to you, and it's very intimate, real, and very funny at times. Also, it was a fascinating take on the beginnings of the music industry, doo-wop to r&b to soul to rock and roll, all the stealing and dirty dealing.
November 26, 2022
I really loved this. For someone who considered themselves a fan of Etta James, I really knew very
little about her - it was such a gift to have this book written in her own words, which were whip smart, sassy and self deprecatingly honest. Her story is remarkable to read, I can’t recommend this highly enough
little about her - it was such a gift to have this book written in her own words, which were whip smart, sassy and self deprecatingly honest. Her story is remarkable to read, I can’t recommend this highly enough
July 29, 2024
Soooo interesting she’s lived so many lives the stories are so interesting - only thing is she mentions so many people it gets kinda confusing but other than that loved it feel like I know her now
October 18, 2016
Etta James lived a very tumultuous life. This autobiography was a very candid look into the singer's life. I appreciated her honesty and I liked reading about other artists that she met throughout her career. All I can say is she was hell on wheels.
March 16, 2014
I am a huge Etta James fan, although I knew about her drug addictions and in and out of rehab....I had no idea the depth of her other problems. This book is a must read for all Etta James fans.
June 22, 2021
Etta James has sung everything from Gospel to Blues, Country and Jazz Ballads, teenage R & B and Rock and Roll. Her early life and her various successes have at times been overshadowed and derailed by her rebellious and contrary nature, bad relationships, and her addictions to heroin, cocaine and alcohol. At an age when many artists were slowing down or retiring she finally got clean once and for all and relaunched herself as a mature but still thriving legend. Her biography, co-written by David Ritz, tells her story in all its gritty detail - the story of an artist without compromise, who was equally at home in the finest hotels and the darkest alleyways. Moving and revealing. - BH.
February 28, 2015
(Candi Staton celebrates the life of Etta James, who died in 2012. on BBC: BBC Music)
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November 20, 2018
I love Blues Music. I loved listening to Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Albert King, James Cotton, and many more male Blues Singers. Then I heard Etta James! Male blues singers can touch you with their songs about the blues but Etta reaches in and grabs your heart.
From Etta I learned about Koko Taylor, Big Mama Thorton, Billie Holiday, Bonny Raitt, Marcia Ball, Ruthie Foster, Shemekia Copeland and so many amazing women blues artists. Women were the first blues artists and, luckily, they are taking back the music and the lime light.
I have many of Etta's albums. Each time I play them I can hear her singing directly to me. The power, the anger, the hurt, the loss, the drive, the caring, and, most of all, the love.
Rage To Survive is a hard book. It has to be as Etta James's life (her actual name was Jamesetta Hawkins) was difficult from beginning to end. Her mother was certifiably crazy, she never was sure who her father was, she was abused by man after man that she tried to love, she was ripped off by one record company after another, and then there were the drugs, drugs, and more drugs. I don't know why so many Black women blues singers pick abusive men and then have to dull the pain with drugs but they do. They see others do it, swear they won't, and yet walk right down the same road.
What comes through loud and clear with this book is that Etta was in touch with her anger and she used the force of it to push herself through crisis after crisis. She managed to make dozens of albums from Blues to R & B to Soul to Jazz and be nominated for, and win, multiple Grammy awards. She went from drug to drug, abuser to abuser, rehab to rehab, recording label to recording label and, in the end, she had her craft, her numerous albums, her international fans, her two sons, and a devoted husband. She died January 20, 2012 at the age of 73. This book was written in 1995 but after it was written Etta lived seven more years and made ten more albums.
I regret that I never got to see Etta James perform live but, luckily, this book and her dozens of albums bring her into my life and let her touch my heart.
From Etta I learned about Koko Taylor, Big Mama Thorton, Billie Holiday, Bonny Raitt, Marcia Ball, Ruthie Foster, Shemekia Copeland and so many amazing women blues artists. Women were the first blues artists and, luckily, they are taking back the music and the lime light.
I have many of Etta's albums. Each time I play them I can hear her singing directly to me. The power, the anger, the hurt, the loss, the drive, the caring, and, most of all, the love.
Rage To Survive is a hard book. It has to be as Etta James's life (her actual name was Jamesetta Hawkins) was difficult from beginning to end. Her mother was certifiably crazy, she never was sure who her father was, she was abused by man after man that she tried to love, she was ripped off by one record company after another, and then there were the drugs, drugs, and more drugs. I don't know why so many Black women blues singers pick abusive men and then have to dull the pain with drugs but they do. They see others do it, swear they won't, and yet walk right down the same road.
What comes through loud and clear with this book is that Etta was in touch with her anger and she used the force of it to push herself through crisis after crisis. She managed to make dozens of albums from Blues to R & B to Soul to Jazz and be nominated for, and win, multiple Grammy awards. She went from drug to drug, abuser to abuser, rehab to rehab, recording label to recording label and, in the end, she had her craft, her numerous albums, her international fans, her two sons, and a devoted husband. She died January 20, 2012 at the age of 73. This book was written in 1995 but after it was written Etta lived seven more years and made ten more albums.
I regret that I never got to see Etta James perform live but, luckily, this book and her dozens of albums bring her into my life and let her touch my heart.
September 5, 2009
Etta James is one of those celebrities you hear about and wondered what happened to. Up until a few years ago, I thought she was deceased. You don’t hear much about or from here these days, but she is alive and kicking.
Jamesetta Hawkins was the product of a 14 year old African-American mother and a white father (who is rumored to be Minnesota Fats the pool shark). This book chronicles her tumultuous childhood complete with absent mother. It goes on to talk of her rise to stardom and her demise through various types of drugs. It also goes on to talk about her failed romantic relationships, criminal activity and stints in prison and rehab.
Pretty much your standard autobiography/memoir fare, however, Etta’s writing style makes the story more accessible. Not the queen of grammar, using double negatives all over the damn book, you still can read it with ease.
But Etta doesn’t feel sorry for herself; she falls down and stands up over and over again. Each chapter there is something awful happening in her life, and you would think this would make a depressing read, but it doesn’t.
This book was published in the early 1990s, and the story stops sometime after she was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll hall of fame. The last chapter of this book, she talks about how she is still overweight and working toward being leaner and healthier. I looked her up recently, and she has succeeded.
She is now in her early 70s and looks like she weighs 120 lbs…a far cry from the 300+ lbs she weighed toward the end of her book.
This book was enlightening and I’m glad there are still some strong black women in this world. Etta James is a survivor.
Jamesetta Hawkins was the product of a 14 year old African-American mother and a white father (who is rumored to be Minnesota Fats the pool shark). This book chronicles her tumultuous childhood complete with absent mother. It goes on to talk of her rise to stardom and her demise through various types of drugs. It also goes on to talk about her failed romantic relationships, criminal activity and stints in prison and rehab.
Pretty much your standard autobiography/memoir fare, however, Etta’s writing style makes the story more accessible. Not the queen of grammar, using double negatives all over the damn book, you still can read it with ease.
But Etta doesn’t feel sorry for herself; she falls down and stands up over and over again. Each chapter there is something awful happening in her life, and you would think this would make a depressing read, but it doesn’t.
This book was published in the early 1990s, and the story stops sometime after she was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll hall of fame. The last chapter of this book, she talks about how she is still overweight and working toward being leaner and healthier. I looked her up recently, and she has succeeded.
She is now in her early 70s and looks like she weighs 120 lbs…a far cry from the 300+ lbs she weighed toward the end of her book.
This book was enlightening and I’m glad there are still some strong black women in this world. Etta James is a survivor.
December 17, 2016
(Yahoo! Book # 52! I wanted to read 52 books while I'm 52 & I finished with a week and a half to spare!)
Etta was incredible, such a talent and with such a tumultuous life she let us all in on. Her music spans genres and generations with seeming ease- but not. One. Bit! Was actually easy! She struggled to overcome an upbringing as chaotic as the worst childhood could ever be. Her genuine appreciation of other artists she got to work with was palpably heartfelt. (Name pretty much anyone who's anyone in any era or musical style and she collaborated with them!)
Her sassy, screw-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on attitude was funny and at times heartbreaking. She knew she needed to get clean, to get rid of (fill in the blank repeatedly of bad pimp/gangster/loser man in her life) and it was heroic when she finally did at 50 years old. I'm still mad she didn't sing At Last at Obama's inauguration. I will listen to Etta with renewed love and continue to champion her to any and all people I meet.
Etta was incredible, such a talent and with such a tumultuous life she let us all in on. Her music spans genres and generations with seeming ease- but not. One. Bit! Was actually easy! She struggled to overcome an upbringing as chaotic as the worst childhood could ever be. Her genuine appreciation of other artists she got to work with was palpably heartfelt. (Name pretty much anyone who's anyone in any era or musical style and she collaborated with them!)
Her sassy, screw-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on attitude was funny and at times heartbreaking. She knew she needed to get clean, to get rid of (fill in the blank repeatedly of bad pimp/gangster/loser man in her life) and it was heroic when she finally did at 50 years old. I'm still mad she didn't sing At Last at Obama's inauguration. I will listen to Etta with renewed love and continue to champion her to any and all people I meet.
August 12, 2025
I was not a huge R&B fan coming up. I heard all songs that hit played on top 40 radio and definitiely appreciated Screaming Jay, Ray Price, Bobby Blue Bland, Ruth Brown, Aretha, Chuck Berry, Little Willy John, Harvey Fuqua & the Moonglows, and of course Ray Charles and on, and on, but I was too young to be collecting records and my head was oriented in other directions until I backtracked onto the music when I was a little older, so I wasn't expecting to be bowled over by this biography. I was wrong. Etta has something to say about just about every doo-wop and R&B star you care to name as well as many Rockers and jazz musicians, and she doesn't pull any punches. It chronicles a not well known lifestyle that was going on in the background of all those unforgettable soul singeing hits. If nothing else, Etta's narative serves as an excellent guide to which of the many releases of her original recordings that are still available today on CD.
July 26, 2022
Growing up my mum loved to play an album of Etta James' greatest hits. It made such an impression on me; the power of her voice is so rich with emotion. She is a born storyteller, her songs paint pictures of pain, grief, lust, betrayal but also the overwhelming joy of requited love. Just like Billie Holiday's autobiography 'Lady sings the blues', which is one of my favourites, Etta tells it straight. She doesn't fuck around making excuses for her behaviour, but is refreshingly honest about her drug use and incarceration. What a wild life, from start to finish! An unconventional upbringing, finding solace in music and the church, her talent being 'discovered' at an early age and hitting the road as a teenager, facing racism (from both black and white communities) and battling with addiction. I couldn't put this book down. Definitely worth reading whether you're a fan of hers or not.
May 29, 2017
An amazing autobiography...one of the best I've ever read. She stood in her truth and it was raw and uncut. I measure the authenticity of an autobiography/biography by, once read, do you walk away feeling like you know the person. I can say with her that I did. She kept it real and she didn't sugarcoat anything...it is what it is. She didn't have an easy life, not as a child or an adult. She led a fascinating life and it held my interest until the end. I hated for this book to end. When you read a really good story, it has such an impact on you and it lingers long after you've finish it. This was one of those stories for sure.
April 29, 2011
ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Left me inspired and begging for more -- ESPECIALLY considering her condition right now... God bless Etta James. She has touched (and still continues to touch) a great number of hearts/lives/souls with her passion & pain via her unforgettably sublime voice and her story should be read (and thus, appreciated) by all... Because honestly, this book changed me for the better, and for that I am eternally grateful. And no matter what happens to the legendary singer during the next year or so, I KNOW Etta James will live on forever.
October 2, 2020
This book is a very amazing story of how a gifted child with lots of struggles rose to fame and spiraled in and out of jails, drugs, bad relationships to come out alive and so original is really incredible!I reread this book after 12 years and I have to say you know you're in for a goodread when you actually read every word on every page! I got Etta on my pandora radio and even on google so I could hear the songs as she described them in the book. Somethings got a hold of me, you can still hear the richness in her voice and Definitely a favorite artist to me!
November 29, 2014
A perfect autobiography.
Even more perfect because about ten or so years after this came out, Etta James sunk into illness and Alzheimer's. For a life like hers and a what an amazing life she lived, it would have been a crime had she not been able to do it.
Etta James speaks throughout this book with unflinching candor and full awareness of her underlying fears and judgments of her actions and motivations. She is unapologetic and therefore, make the reader cheer for her even more.
This was such a pleasurable read and a great slice of music history.
Even more perfect because about ten or so years after this came out, Etta James sunk into illness and Alzheimer's. For a life like hers and a what an amazing life she lived, it would have been a crime had she not been able to do it.
Etta James speaks throughout this book with unflinching candor and full awareness of her underlying fears and judgments of her actions and motivations. She is unapologetic and therefore, make the reader cheer for her even more.
This was such a pleasurable read and a great slice of music history.
September 15, 2017
I took me so long to read this one, completely relishing it. Beyond the deeply personal reasons I connected with Etta's story (her troubled relationship with her mother & her love for her surrogate mother-figure) there were so many other incredible moments when I found myself laughing & crying, getting goosebumps...I was particularly moved by her story of songwriting with Allen Toussaint, & it meant so much for me to learn some details of Esther Phillips' death - information I never knew was out there, anywhere. I'm so grateful to have spent this time with Etta James.
October 13, 2007
Wow. This book is like time travelling to a time in American history that I never experienced and am glad I didn't. James and her co-author Ritz will take you on a no-holds-barred trip. James recalls specific incidents of shooting up with the likes of Miles Davis and Bo Diddley. She'll tell you about her quest to meet Minnesota Fats, the man she believes is her father. You'll read all the back stories on her greatest hits and her worst failures.
October 9, 2012
Etta James is my favorite singer of all time. I know every song she ever sang, and thought I knew everything there was to know about her. Boy was I wrong. Now I knew that the woman had some issues, but I didn't know the extent of her troubles. Etta James is so candid and pours her heart and soul into this book. I now understand where the pain, attitude and raw emotion you hear in her songs originates from. I don't know why it took me so long to pick up this book, but I'm so glad I did.
April 21, 2013
This book had some heavy stuff in it, even jaw dropping lines. Etta James left nothing unsaid, her honesty and rawness is unique and even odd at times. She even gave insight to other artist that died in a horrible ways and suffer in so many ways as she did to get to the top. I bet if some the artist knew what they were going to go threw during thoes times, they would go back being that child singing gospel.
March 30, 2015
For personal reasons, I find I have less and less tolerance for junkies, and Etta James was one for decades, so the chaos and criminality of those years is a big focus of this autobiography, and I grew weary of such blow-by-blow accounts. Still, her voice and spirit are well captured, along with many details surrounding the songs she wrote and the recordings she made, and those things made this book a worthwhile read.
July 23, 2020
This is a marvelous book which unfortunately is all to relevant to current issues of sexual exploitation of very young women, parental abandonment, and discrimination based on the "one drop rule." Many times Etta had to prove she was "black" especially to local sheriffs. David Ritz has done an excellent job and I would read his other biographies. Keep the tissue handy, and your Etta James music too!
November 20, 2007
Could not put this down. Inspiring, intriguing tale of remarkable woman. Ghost written but really seems to capture her voice. It feels like you are sitting down having a chat with Etta over a beer (or in her case coffee these days!) It is also a great encyclopedia of some of the lesser known soul, gospel and blues singers who pioneered the way for the household names of today.
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August 12, 2011I loved this book. I decided to read Etta James's story after seeing Cadillac Records. She's really candid. Jimi Hendrix's nickname tripped me out...I can't remember everything I was going to say about the book...I blogged about it too, so it definitely made an impression, no question about it. This woman has been through a lot and lived to tell the tale.
January 13, 2008
A great book about my favorite female blues singer. I didnt realize she took soooo many drugs though. Some people OD and they die. This woman OD'd many times and she's still performing! Makes me wonder sometimes.
January 25, 2008
An amazing story written in the voice of a talented, funny, and inspirational woman. Etta's lifelong struggle with drug abuse is interwoven with anecdotes about the founding fathers (and mothers) of soul. A wonderful story of survival.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews